Fabula Nova Fatorum Magica
by Penny Smiles
Summary: And so Good-For-Nothing, in her quest for the kind and caring goddess she held so dear, dived deep into the depths of the eternal abyss of time once more. But what awaited her was not the eternal abyss, but the fires of a hell unimaginable. For the Great Holy Grail War had come to Mitakihara. In all its glories. And all its horrors.
1. Chapter 1 - Old Fashioned Fairy Tale

Somewhere far far away, beyond the furthest vast seas yet so close to just be within arm's reach, there existed a paradise beyond world's end.

Ah, but… 'Paradise' isn't exactly the full nor correct expression.

Let's try that again one more time...

Somewhere far far away, in a place deep down where the human heart yearns, was a land where the plains were smooth and covered by blossoms of every color. Where the view of the horizon brought forth the colors of earth and sky in a harmonious melody. Where morning's light brought bright rays of spring and the flavors of summer air, and the sky of night's fall was swept by autumn winds and dotted by bright stars of winter. Where the forests and lakes welcomed home all the graceful beings and fae of childhood dreams. Where the myths and legends of the world roamed the vast vibrant plains bliss and free.

Man's concept of 'paradise' was but an imitation of this garden of wonder. An ever-distant utopia that they and all wiser beasts from the world or beyond would forever be forbidden from setting foot upon. For here stood no fences nor homes made by human hands; no walls, redoubts, or lines in the land man called borders. A land untouched by the rise and fall of empires. A land that would never cross paths with man yet walked hand-in-hand alongside the length of human memories.

In that flowery garden existed a beautiful pillar of the finest marble beyond mortal-make. A great white tower grander than the tallest mountains that could be seen from all reaches of the land. If one were to look up, it would seem to extend vertically forever, infinite without end into the spring-summer sky.

Near the top of that infinitely extending tower, within a room without a roof that stretched only a mere ten meters in all directions, sat something in the shape of a person. That of a man dressed in a white robe woven from the finest fabrics. The sun's rays shone through his long pearl-like hair, igniting a rainbow of colors.

On his lap, a small white and fluffy creature laid curled up with its eye closed. One would be reminded of a squirrel, but with fluffy white fur and long ears like a rabbit and paws like a puppy. Around its neck like a cross between a collar and a doggy cape was a colorful white and blue handkerchief tied by a dark pink knot at the front. Long rabbit-like ears perked upward as it listened to the tale its master read from a blue book with golden borders in his right hand.

Within that book was the tale of one who was once just a young orphan girl content with the world and all its simplicities. A farm girl who one day sacrificed that life of simplicity and pulled the Sword in the Stone to protect her homeland from the invaders who would do her people harm. A knight who's tale of courage and bravery in a small island nation echoed throughout the world across all ages, bringing hope to all those who heard or spoke her name.

"A girl who, at the end of her long and arduous journey, met a tragic end, hated by her people as a perfect yet inhuman king who could not understand the hearts of her people," said the man. Although he smiled, it was of bitter nostalgia and regret. "But that is a tale for another time."

"Fouuuuuuuu," sighed the small squirrel-like creature close to what a human would perceive as sympathetic sadness. The man smiled wider at the creature on his lap, stroking the back of its soft white fur.

"Do not worry, Cath Palug. There are more stories to come. Our little King's story is not quite over yet," the man reassured to his familiar. Cath Palug sat upright and looked up at his master. Setting aside the blue book, the man continued, "We will return to our tale of the Round Table later. But first, our tale of the present beckons once more."

From within his robes, the man pulled out a dark glass orb with colors of the deepest blue oceans. The mists within swirled about in a circular fashion, hiding behind its fog mysteries of the world that only he could see. The man closed his eyes and focused his mind on the orb. Slowly but surely, the mist parted ways to the image of a young girl.

The girl stood firm in an amalgamation of a blue medieval dress and the silver armor of a gallant and shining knight. Her fine blonde hair was bundled behind her head into a large flat bun and wrapped in a single braid around its circumference. Within both her hands was a sword wrapped in wisps of air, enchanted with invisibility long ago by the very man observing her from afar.

Behind her, collapsed on a field of grass, was a teenage boy. Dressed in a white jacket with long black sleeves and blue jeans, his auburn red hair was blown back by a sudden gust of wind and his golden-brown eyes looked up wide in surprise and terror.

In front of the girl, standing almost twice her height and size, was a dark giant with wild black hair and crimson eyes of madness that bored into her sharp eyes of emerald. Clothed in only a dark skirt of Greek origin, he stood hunched against the girl in a blade-locked stalemate, unbothered by the cold night air and grassy soil under his large bare feet. His perfectly toned and muscled body with unnatural dark brown skin belonged more to a large statue than that of a man. The size of just his arms was almost the size of her torso, and the slab of rock held within his right hand grinding against her invisible sword was itself larger than a full-grown man.

The girl quickly disengaged her blade downwards before spinning with momentum and striking with a blow of her own. The dark giant moved his rocky axe-sword up in defense, but with surprising and impossible strength, the girl knocked back the giant several meters into the air. The ensuing shockwave caused any onlooking spectators to cover their eyes and brace their footing from the sudden rush of sound and wind.

"It's only been a couple hours since her last battle, but it seems our King has once again found herself against quite the opponent. And this one is quite formidable indeed, for her foe is none other than Heracles, the greatest Champion of Olympus!" spoke the man bombastically like one would impress a small child.

On cue, the figure of Heracles within the orb let out a loud roar. Cath Palug watched the orb held within his master's hand with wide eyes and great anticipation, letting out an awed 'fouuu' in wonder.

Once more, the two legends exchanged blows in a battle to the death. The Greek hero's frightening berserk strength and speed was on par with the King's disciplined swordsmanship and agility. Shockwaves and loud gusts of wind came from every blocked blow and counter-attack. Every strike and parry brought vibrant sparks and magical residue of orange and blue.

Gradually, their battle continued upward as the girl lured the mad giant into a graveyard further up the side of the mountain. Fog and mist filled the air, obscuring Heracles' vision while he went after in chase. The King had set a trap for him and took advantage with a swift and powerful strike.

"Fou! Fou!" Cath Palug cried out in surprise as the image of Heracles suddenly swiped at seemingly nothing with his large stone sword, slicing several tombstones in two. A large red gash that went deep across the front of his chest remained, making him sneer in irritation at the girl standing several meters off to the side unharmed, sword up ready for another strike. The man with the orb in hand simply smiled.

More tense minutes passed as the two legends clashed within the graveyard, leaving ruined tombstones, several holes and gashes within the stone pavement, and toppled trees in their wake. Eventually, their battle came to a standstill, and the two stood still across either side of the long stone road that ran through the middle of the graveyard.

The King raised her sword arm and pointed it at Heracles. Her mouth moved, but no words could be heard from the orb. Whatever dialogue the two shared was brief, as only a few seconds after, the girl grabbed her sword with both her hands and held it upright, long wisps of magical energies gathering around both her and her sword. With a large torrent of energy, the girl burst forward in speeds far surpassing sound towards her foe as he roared and raised his axe-sword high into the air.

And then she disappeared. Gone in a bright flash of pink light.

The man's eyes snapped open.

"Fou? Fofou!" said Cath Palug with his head tilted in confusion. Within the orb, both the King and Champion of Olympus had disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the destruction of the landscape the two had wrought. Two teenagers who were watching the spectacle, the boy from the beginning whom the King had protected and a twin-pigtailed girl dressed in a fine red coat, looked around the scene just as bewildered and confused as the poor squirrel-like creature.

The man's eyebrows furrowed as his once ever-present smile turned into a frown. Once more, the man's eyes closed as he concentrated on the orb. Cath Palug watched in curiosity as the images within the orb snapped from place to place quickly with only a half-second between each image. Some images he managed to catch was a church, a temple at the base of a mountain, a red crane in the middle of a city, and a massive empty cavern filled with nothing but darkness.

"Kyu?" questioned Cath Palug as he turned his head towards his master. When he received no response, he looked back towards the orb and watched. Images of places entirely different from the setting before replaced the earlier images. Scenes of a grand desert, underwater trenches within the deepest oceans, a city next to a mountain with the English words 'Holly Wood' plastered in white into its side, and a frigid snowy landscape were just a few of the images it managed to glimpse in the quick torrent of it all. And then the images stopped at a clear and crystal view of the world in all its splendor, with its deep blue oceans and green and brown continents covered in white clouds scattered randomly across its sphere.

"Fouu…" Cath Palug murmured, entranced by the beautiful image of the world in its entirety.

The worldly image lasted for just a few moments more before snapping back to the beginning where the two warriors had initially clashed. The two teens from before had their hands to the sides of their mouths while they called someone's name, searching around and about the graveyard.

The colors of the orb began to change, swapping between different palettes of a variety of vibrant shades. The image of the battered graveyard within remained the same, yet every second brought about a different mixture of blues, yellows, reds, and even colors that could not be perceived with the cone cells of human eyes. The two humans within remained oblivious to it all, for they saw nothing of the sort and continued their fruitless search.

And then the man found it. Cath Palug watched as the orb replicated what only the man's clairvoyant eyes could see. It was the same image once again, with all the same shades and colors of the natural world. However, in the middle of the graveyard along the very same stone pavement where the two legends had clashed were two odd distortions in the air. Lights of shades unperceivable to the natural human eye blended and twisted around the two circular distortions. It was like looking at an artist depiction of a wormhole, only with colors that did not exist so it appeared as if it wasn't there in the first place.

A third distortion further away from the two at the very back of the graveyard could also be seen, though it was smaller and dimmer than the first two. Now that Cath Palug thought about it, there was a third spectator during the battle between legends. A little girl in a foreign purple coat and hat with bright red eyes, albino skin, and long white hair that captured the brilliance of the moonlight. She too had vanished, replaced by that odd distortion.

"I see… So that's how it is," spoke the man. Cath Palug looked back at his master as he slowly opened his eyes of amethyst.

"Kyu?" questioned Cath Palug.

"Is this how it feels to be human?" the man spoke to himself, eyes distant and unfocused. "To be unable to watch and know the unobservable? To worry what the events of yesterday's night would bring in morning's day? Truly, humans are blessed with such an odd and exciting emotion," the man said with an expression akin to a child tasting something new that they neither liked nor hated for the first time.

"Fou?" Cath Palug asked again.

The man smiled sheepishly at the familiar on his lap. "Ah, I apologize, Cath Palug. I was deep in thought about something," he said, rubbing the back of his head.

"Fou." Cath Palug deadpanned.

The man gave a hearty chuckle. "I'm quite alright, my friend. Though I appreciate the offer."

The man picked up his staff, a large crooked branch of a black tree wrapped with ribbons of pink, blue and ivory to an ornate golden metal rod, and pushed himself off the ground. With his odd staff in his left hand, he walked over towards one of the many large open windows that surrounded the room. Twice he was tall and three times he was wide, one could easily imagine him climbing out and sitting on the window sill. Alas, he simply stood behind, gazing out at the majestic oceans beyond the land's beautiful flowery plains that extended forever into the horizon like an infinite line from east to west.

"The same, however, cannot be said for our dear King. It seems she has once again found herself on another journey. One, however, that I oddly cannot see," the man said.

He looked up at the eternal spring skies, a frown on his lips and eyes narrowed in concern. "Something has happened to her in that small scuffle in the Far East. Something minor maybe. Eight missing persons and an overrated cup gone in the blink of an eye hardly matters in the grand scheme of human history.

"Yet, for the first time, I know not what the future brings. Events have been set into motion that I am unable to observe nor perceive. For I, gifted with eyes of the world, that is most worrying indeed."

He turned towards his familiar, smiling once more. "I hate to ask this of you, Cath Palug, but could you do me one more favor? I'd love to investigate this myself, but as you can see of my current predicament, I am incapable of leaving this place on my own free will," he said with mirthful humor, motioning to the lack of any form of ladders or stairs within their small atrium. He leaned with one hand on the open space of the large window he stood next to, spring air brushing his palm as it rested perfectly on an invisible surface tilting neither outward or inward.

The man continued, "Our King has been spirited away to place I know not where. If I cannot see her here, naturally that must mean she has returned to the Throne of Heroes. Yet, I cannot sense her there either. If she cannot be found in this world nor can her main body be found in that horrid place beyond time or space, where could she have been taken?"

Slowly, the man approached Cath Palug, his odd staff lightly tapping the marble floor with a quiet 'tink' with each step forward. He took a knee to his familiar and friend, looking seriously into Cath Palug's eyes in a way he had never seen his master before.

"So I ask of you, Cath Palug, will you assist me in one more adventure, be my eyes and ears in this new tale, and become the King's guardian in her time of need?"

After a moment of thought and deliberation, Cath Palug quickly shook his head and curled up into ball.

The man smiled. "Thank you once again, my friend," he said with a soft and gentle tone.

And then quickly grabbed Cath Palug by the back of his collar.

"Fou?! Kyu?!" the small and fluffy creature cried out in surprise.

"There will be many obstacles and trials on your path," the man said, ignoring his familiar. He slowly started walking back to the window, Cath Palug in hand. "You will come across heroes of legend, trek through lands untouched by any mortal before, and face horrors I cannot even begin to imagine."

Cath Palug wiggled and thrashed as best he could but to no avail, for the man's grip was stronger than it looked.

The man continued, "Dark days are ahead, my friend. But I have no doubt however that you will reach the end of your long and treacherous road with victory in tow. And who knows, maybe you will find the answer to your lifelong question as well. Even bear witness to an actual miracle. Think of it also as a personal journey for yourself."

The man was now at the edge of the window, a squirming Cath Palug in hand.

"Kyu?" Cath Palug whimpered pleadingly, still as a stone. The man brought them up to eye level and looked them in the eye with his ever-present smile.

"Good luck, Cath Palug. I can say with certainty that whatever may come to pass will be a trial unlike any other. But with your freedom, you shall play into something truly beautiful."

And then the man tossed the poor rabbit-like creature off the ledge and out the window.

"Fou!? FOFOOUUUUUUUUUUUU!?" screamed Cath Palug, as he tumbled in the air down and down with his legs flailing about. His voice grew quieter and more distant the longer he fell through the infinite air, till finally, the man could hear his dear friend no more.

The man looked down at the tiny dot of Cath Palug with a blank expression like he forgot something particularly important. His expression then lit up with recollection. "Ah, that's right! I forgot to give him the enchantment. Ah well, he'll only fall for a little bit longer than normal. I'm sure he'll recover," he said, although with an uneasy grimace.

Even though his clairvoyant eyes could not observe his King, he could most certainly foresee that he would be subject to a beating the next time he and his familiar met.

The man walked back to the middle of the room and took a seat. With a snap of a finger, a simple brown leather-covered book with yellowish pages of parchment and a pen from the feather of a phoenix appeared in his hands.

And, with his head perched on the palm of his right hand, the man closed his eyes and watched.

And watched.

And watched.

And watched.

And watched.

And watched.

And after the seventh time the spring sun gave way to stars of winter and the summer air had turned into the gentle breeze of autumn winds, the man spoke the first words of the tale that he beheld into the book as the feather of a phoenix followed his every thought.

A new chapter in the life of King Arthur Pendragon. A small town fable yet a legendary tale. A grand epic of the Earth and the World. A song of heroes and the wishes they all held dear.

And so the Magus of Flowers began, "Once upon a time…"

* * *

 _ **Fabula Nova Fatorum Magica**_

 _ **Act I**_

 _ **Chapter 1: Old-Fashioned Fairy Tale**_

* * *

oOoOo

Once upon a time, in a land bound within the wheels of karma, a girl with eyes of wonder gazed upon a beautiful Earth for the first time.

Born to a man and woman who ruled the Earth through wealth and power, the girl would have been nothing short of a princess in a land of riches and industry.

But they, who valued money and prestige above all else, had no need for a daughter. Worse yet, the girl was born ugly and frail, with a heart so weak the doctors predicted she wouldn't live into adulthood. She croaked and whined in their arms, yet her newborn cries remained but quiet whispers. When the nurses and doctors asked the man and woman what was to be their princess' name, they looked at each other in irritated silence and then the creature within their arms.

And so they named the girl, 'Good-For-Nothing'.

When they finally brought Good-For-Nothing home, the maids of the mansion spoke and whispered behind closed doors how unsightly and hideous their daughter was. How with each room the daughter was brought in left a sickening putrid smell that made their eyes tear up at its strength. About how even the various exotic pets and bugs, kept to impress and entertain visiting lords and ladies, shied away from her gangly aura.

Good-For-Nothing heard their whispers but paid them no mind. Every day, too weak to climb out of her crib, she would watch through the window in her room and gaze out at the beautiful land outside. At the city filled with its various peoples and their vibrant cultures. At the green forests and deep blue seas at the city's edge. At the sky that shifted between bright sunny days and blissful starry nights. For as long as the Earth was beautiful, she would be okay.

Disgusted by her unsightly body and worried what the other lords and ladies might think of them for harboring such a creature, the man and woman wanted nothing more than to do away with their cursed spawn. But they could not simply leave her in the streets or in an orphanage. "That would be inhumane," the people would cry out. So for eight long years, the man and woman begrudgingly cared for Good-For-Nothing till she was of age. Eight long years without warmth and comfort, without gifts of tender kindness or words of encouragement. Only sweet sweet lies to placate their daughter and to keep appearances.

Good-For-Nothing was not fooled by their false love but excused them nonetheless. She understood how much she made life difficult for them, so it was only natural. In the end, she didn't mind. After all, the Earth was beautiful. And the Earth loved her. That was all that mattered.

When Good-For-Nothing finally came to be of age, they sent her away to an island nation on the other side of the Earth. The man and woman told their friends and family that she was being sent to a prestigious Catholic boarding school for her betterment. The man and woman only told her the same lies they said every time.

Good-For-Nothing didn't mind. It was okay, she understood. A change of scenery sounded nice anyhow. The Earth was beautiful after all. The more she got to see, the better it would be.

When she finally arrived at the school after a long and confusing journey through an unfamiliar land all by herself, for her parents did not want to spend money on a guide on her of all things, she once more heard the whispers behind closed doors. "How ugly. Look how old and ragged her clothes are," the teachers said. "How smelly, look how big and dorky her glasses are," the other students snickered. "How could anyone love a wicked and evil witch like her?" they all teased.

Good-For-Nothing walked to her dorm in silence with her head bowed down and shoulders tucked in. It was all true after all. And mother always said it was okay and wasn't mean as long as what they said was true. So what was she to complain? In truth, it really didn't matter. The Earth was beautiful after all. With legs to explore and hands to touch, with ears to hear the sound of the wind and eyes to gaze upon the earth's wonders, it would all be okay.

Life continued. Every day, Good-For-Nothing would get up and dressed and attend her classes. The students would tease and throw paper at her when the teachers weren't looking. Pull at her thick French braids and pull tricks on her around every corner in the hall. Point at her and criticize her during lunch when they caught her looking at their joyous friendship and laughter with sinful looks of jealousy.

At night, the students would steal the wicked witch's things and turn her shower water cold. They would wake her up in the middle of the night with a horn and playfully tell her it was just a prank. One morning even, she found her uniform missing and attended class that day in her pajamas. She tried to sleep in her uniform from then on, but that did not stop the new slew of insults they threw at her.

But Good-For-Nothing held strong. For the Earth was still beautiful. She would leave that awful place one day, leave her cold home, and carve her life anew as the Earth welcomed her.

One day, on a hot afternoon out in the track field, Good-For-Nothing collapsed. Her breathing ragged, she clutched painfully at her heart like it would rip apart at the seams. That did not stop the children's jeers as she was carted away. She did not hear their calls of weakness and uselessness. She was just that after all, and had lost all consciousness.

When she next came too, she stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling. In a white bed not her own. In a plain robe that weekly tugged at her skin and left her feeling cold in the sterile room.

The doctors and nurses came in with their clipboards and masks of sorrow, keeping their distance from her hideous body. They told her heart was diseased, too fragile and weak to leave the hospitals walls and see the outside Earth, and only had a couple years left to live. That her parents, kings and queens in a nation of riches and industry, did not expect her to live long, and forgone the payment for the operation that could cure her heart. That she would live out the rest of her life here, alone and unloved.

And then the doctors and nurses left, leaving her alone in the cold white room.

She called for anybody. Her classmates, the doctors, the maids in the mansion, the people of various cultures, and the man and woman who once held her in their arms so long ago. Begged and begged. Promised to do anything. Just not be left alone. When none came to her call, she at last called for the Earth. For the Earth was beautiful, and would surely give her the love she so selfishly longed for.

But the Earth had no room for wretched things like Good-For-Nothing, and rightfully told her so. For although beautiful, the Earth was finite. It could not afford to waste time or energy on weak and lazy runts like her. For only the fit may survive and partake in the Earth's wonders.

And she was, since the very day she was born, good for nothing.

Eyes of wonder cried like never before on that day. An unloved heart, already wounded from neglect and longing, shattered into a million pieces, never to be whole once again.

Time passed. Each day like a year. Each year like yesterday. Every moment dull and lifeless as Good-For-Nothing lay there, eyes glazed as she waited for the end.

But her stubborn and broken heart was stronger than the doctors thought, and she continued to live for several more years. A burden on the hospital and her parents across the ocean.

Eventually, after tired of the annual bills and suspicious questions from their peers, her parents agreed to have the doctors perform the operation on her heart. The operation was a success, though only partially. Her heart was fixed for the time being, but they could not cure its weakness.

And so Good-For-Nothing walked again. A broken unsightly thing once more tainting a beautiful Earth.

One day, a goddess took notice of Good-For-Nothing as she sat on a bench atop a very tall bridge. Descending from the heavens, the goddess asked Good-For-Nothing, "What's wrong? Why are you so sad?"

Good-For-Nothing, broken beyond repair, didn't even so much as look at her divine image as she bothered the goddess with a reply. "I am unwanted and unloved. Without friends or family. I am a witch that curses all that she touches. Prideful. Pessimistic. Deceiving. Cold hearted. Selfish. Slanderous. Blockheaded. Jealous. Lazy. Vain. Cowardly. Stupid-looking. Inferior. Stubborn. I am all the Earth's Evils. I am a burden to all, a plaque to society. I have no right to live."

The girl motioned to her chest, a fist over her heart. "This stubborn and cold heart of mine once broke into a million pieces. Yet, it selfishly refuses to die, and would rather have me continue to be a blight on this beautiful Earth. I wish to die, but I am much too cowardly and lazy to end my worthless life."

Vacant but evil eyes turned towards the goddess, threatening to corrupt her and be a burden to her just like she had been a burden upon everyone else. She opened her mouth, her words tinged with deceit and hatred. "Could you help me-"

Suddenly, Good-For-Nothing found herself within the embrace of the goddess. Warmth and kindness radiating like the light of the sun, the goddess held Good-For-Nothing's like none had before. "That's terrible! Don't say things like that!" the goddess said as she cried into her shoulder. "You're so young. You should be loved and cared for, spoiled by parents who adore you, and surrounded by friends who are happy just by being with you!"

Already, Good-For-Nothing had done an awful and wicked thing. Who else but a devil would bring tears to a goddess' eyes? "You should leave me," she told the goddess coldly. "I am but an unsightly witch, and would only be a burden upon you as well."

The Goddess looked deep into her eyes for a time Good-For-Nothing could not measure, for she had long stopped keeping record of the years. Finally, the goddess sighed and said, "Mmm, fine. If that's what you really want, I'll leave. You'll never ever hear from me again. But first…"

The goddess stepped back from the girl and cheerfully held out a hand, her gentle smile filled with such love the broken girl had never seen grace another before. "You have to promise to be my friend for at least one month, otherwise I'll keep pestering you. Deal?"

She should have said no. She should have turned away. She had already tainted enough people with her presence. But she was selfish after all, so she would play the goddess' game, even if it tainted her too. It seemed she didn't have much choice anyway.

And so she hesitantly took the goddess' hand.

The goddess only gave a joyous giggle.

Good-For-Nothing never had a friend before and did not know or understand what it entailed. She would remain as quiet as a stone, not a joke or a word. But the goddess did not mind, and still took her together with her on her travels. Always laughing. Always smiling. Always telling her how wonderful this moment was. Always holding her close and showering her with admiration and love.

The two went on many adventures. Together with a musical mermaid, a dress-up maiden, and a matchstick warrior, they saw wonders Good-For-Nothing only ever dreamed of seeing. They tasted the Earth's best dinaries, stood atop the highest mountains, frolicked in the wildest parks, and watched the most romantic of movies.

Slowly, the goddess performed her miracles. Day by day and piece by piece, she stitched Good-For-Nothing's heart back together. What was once shattered and to never be whole again slowly became one once more. Some pieces remained gone forever, taken and ground up by the Earth. But the goddess simply shrugged and replaced them with golden pieces of her own.

When the final day of the month came and the promise came to an end, when Good-For-Nothing's heart beated in her chest whole and complete, the goddess looked upon her with confusion as the girl learned to weep again once more.

"I do not want this to end," she cried into her arm, holding the goddess' hand as tight as her weak strength would allow, afraid that the goddess would leave her if she let go. "Now that I've felt its warmth, I have grown addicted to it. I cannot imagine a life without it. I want to live. I want to stay by your side. But the final day has come, and our contract is coming to a close. I dread our final moments together and I know not what to do."

The goddess only giggled and pulled Good-For-Nothing once more into her familiar and warm embrace. "Silly, the promise was to be friends for at least one month, not just only one," the Goddess said as she gently wiped the tears away from Good-For-Nothing's eyes. The girl looked at her with hopeful eyes. The goddess, with her hands around the girl's hands, brought them between their chests. "Hmm, how about this… Promise me, that even when all the stars of the sky fade, no matter where we are or how far apart, you'll always be my friend. And in exchange, I'll promise to be your friend too, forever and ever. How's that? Deal?"

There was no other answer. Only one thing the girl could say.

And for the first time in Good-For-Nothing's life, she felt truly happy.

However, that happiness was not to last. Not long after, tragedy struck. A great catastrophe had arrived from the depths of the abyss. The lives of a million people hanged on the balance. The musical mermaid, the dress-up maiden, and the matchstick warrior had already fallen, leaving only the goddess alone against the great catastrophe.

Good-For-Nothing begged and begged. Promised to do anything. She selfishly clung to her new friend's hand, pleading for her not to go. To run away with her and leave the people behind.

But the goddess was too kind and too caring. She could not ignore the plight of a million lives, no matter they be strangers or the wicked. For she loved all, just as she loved her.

So, as Good-For-Nothing cried out her name while she gave her last goodbye, the goddess gave her single life in exchange for the many lives of others and vanished into the depths of the abyss.

Distraught, Good-For-Nothing made a wish upon the wheels of karma itself and asked for the power to meet with the goddess one more time, for the strength to protect and save that goddess just as the goddess saved her.

An insignificant promise buried within the sands of time. But to her, a promise that mattered more to her than the beautiful Earth itself.

The wheels of karma obliged, and so granted her the forbidden _**Magic**_ of time.

Good-For-Nothing, with her newfound miracle, traveled back to where it all began and ventured deep into the depths of the eternal abyss to save the goddess she held oh so dear. Even when the abyss swallowed the goddess's wings and memories, Good-For-Nothing vowed to never forget her promise. She would save her, even if it took an eternity traveling through the abyss.

And so she ran. Timeline after timeline. Until the day she could see her radiant smile and hold her hand once more.

oOoOo

Once upon a time, in a world entwined in the mystical threads of fate, there lived three great families.

The first hid in secret from within the cold dark, the second prayed in worship from the lands of the far east, and the third created wonders from their cradle of stone.

Each family, with their wisdom, wealth, honor, and power, had attained that what man would always desire and dream. All that what man would always wish, and something else beyond man's wildest fantasies.

For the three families held a carefully guarded secret, shared only by those who also lived within the moonlit realm hidden away from the realm of man. For those of the moonlit realm possessed the art of Magecraft, the science of Mystery. The skill to control the magical energies from within the soul to transform the land. The art to reenact the ancient rituals from the Age of Gods. And the three families stood head and shoulders above all the rest.

Yet for all their great wealth and power, the three families desired something more. More than what the realm of man could ever understand, more than what the moonlit realm could ever provide. For magecraft had limits and could only function within the rules of what the World allowed. For what the realm of man could achieve with their science of physics, the realm of moonlight could only achieve just the same. Such was one of the absolute rules of the World, that what bound all mortal realms to the earth beneath the realm of the divine gods above.

And so the three families desired the power of true _**Magic**_. The great miracle beyond the seventh heaven. The power to break the absolute rules of the World and control the great fabric of reality to their whims. To replace the old gods of antiquity lost within the Reverse Side of the World.

Such a grand and selfish desire, man thought. All that what man would always desire and wish for already lay within the mortal world. Who else but the most devious and hungry would desire such a thing.

Yet unbeknownst to all even from the great families themselves, too prideful to voice or acknowledge that radiant desire and beautiful dream deep within their hearts, lied a wish for a peaceful and pure world. A wish for a utopia without hatred or suffering, a world where man could frolic and play without worry of the unknowns of tomorrow. To create a world where the old had failed and refused to do so.

Together, the three families gathered in secret. With the help of a wandering wizard, the three families devised a plan to bring forth a grand miracle.

The first family provided the materials and magecraft so that the miracle could be realized.

The second family gifted their lands for where the miracle may take place.

The third family crafted the body and gave their heart to the miracle so that it could be made whole.

And so a great miracle outside divine providence was created. An omnipotent device forged with the single purpose and ability to bend the rules of the World to reach 「 」, the root of all creation within the universe, to bring forth any single wish. A Holy Grail to grant any and all desires.

But the Holy Grail had a price. And so decreed as such, "Seven wishes I require from seven masters I serve. Seven heroes I seek to open the seven heavens above. To the one worthy to hold my body I grant to thee my power, whatever your desires and dreams may be."

Three seals of absolute authority were granted by the Holy Grail to each of the three families and three more to four strangers. Each seal crystallized proof of their right as a master of destiny to summon and command one of the seven servants of power, heroic spirits of legend from ages long since past.

The seven guardian of scales stood tall as such;

Saber, Servant of the Sword.

Archer, Servant of the Bow.

Lancer, Servant of the Spear.

Rider, Servant of the Mount.

Caster, Servant of Sorcery.

Assassin, Servant of Shadows.

And Berserker, Servant of Madness.

Seven masters and seven servants. Seven desires and seven dreams.

One wish for the one worthy to grasp its holy chalice.

So began the Holy Grail Wars.

The first war ended in failure. A small quarrel of sorts. In the eyes of the third, it had failed before it had even begun.

The second war ended in tragedy. The first 'war', even though officially the second. Seven masters and seven servants became fifty-seven bodies cold and without life. None remained to tell that horrid tale.

The third war ended in stalemate. In the ensuing battles, the Grail's body was shattered, rendering the wish void. Something was said to have happened to the Grail's heart as well, but what had become of it none could tell.

The fourth war ended in catastrophe. An unworthy fool was said to have held the Grail in his hands. None present could hear the words of his wish. All but one burned in the fires of a hell unimaginable as far as the eye could see.

Four times did seven masters and seven servants gather. Four times was the Holy Grail denied its task. A simple wish bestowed upon it long ago to grant the wish of another. A simple wish left unfulfilled.

And as the ages passed without a victor to their great war, one by one, the three families lost sight of their once radiant and beautiful dream. Shells of their former selves, all that remained was the grail and nothing more.

Time passed. Two hundred years since the first but only ten years since the fourth.

And so came the fifth war. Seven servants gifted to seven masters once more.

The first, Berserker, a paragon to all men shackled by madness. Gifted to a princess who lost her cradle of stone.

The second, Caster, a witch of betrayal betrayed by her beloved prince. Entrusted to a prince in worship of vanity.

The third, Rider, a woman cursed by the gods for her beauty and adoration. Thrust to a meek girl seeped in the cold dark.

The fourth, Lancer, a demonic hound born a child of light. Beckoned by a woman in adoration of that light.

The fifth, Assassin, hidden and out of sight.

The sixth, Archer, a broken guardian of scales filled with nothing but regret. Summoned by the guardian of the second lands, a girl filled with everything but regret.

The seventh, Saber, a disgraced king who failed her kingdom in search of redemption. Brought by fate to a boy saved years ago by a fool from a hell unimaginable. A boy with only a single desire, for he desired nothing else. A boy with a radiant and beautiful wish to save them all.

And so the Holy Grail watched, eagerly awaiting one worthy enough to claim its grand prize.

oOoOo

Once upon a time, the wheels of karma snagged a string from the threads of fate.

And so Good-For-Nothing, in her quest for the kind and caring goddess she held so dear, dived deep into the depths of the eternal abyss of time once more. But what awaited her was not the eternal abyss, but the fires of a hell unimaginable. For the Great Holy Grail War had come to Mitakihara.

In all its glories.

And all its horrors.

oOoOo

 _/Well then, try out your magic./_

Oriko Mikuni, an extraordinary girl born from a powerful politician that had fallen from grace, stood amidst the light of her transformation.

Just moments before wearing the uniform of Shirome Junior High School, she now stood garbed in a unique white dress with a large and similarly white top hat, crafted in a fashion as if a world-class designer was tasked to create the most regal and flashy nun's outfit. On her collar, a silver-colored circular gem glistened in the light.

Once human, the girl had become something much more, something only found in the strangest and most unbelievable of fictions. In exchange for her soul and a lifetime of servitude of defending the Earth from Witches, Lovecraftian creatures that fed on human misery and despair, Oriko was to be granted a single wish. Any wish that she could imagine. Any wish to fulfill her heart's desire.

And exchanged her soul she did. And her words were as such, "I wish for a reason for me to live."

The messenger of magic, Kyubey, obliged. And so the human girl known as Oriko Mikuni was no more. In her place, a brand new magical girl stood, poised to defend the Earth from the forces of evil.

Oriko Mikuni opened her eyes, and beheld her gift.

Beheld her eyes to a field of sand.

"What… What is this? Is this… Mitakihara? Or is this… somewhere else?

Looking to her left and right, all she could see was a vast desert with dunes of fine sand and scattered remains of various fallen buildings. Not a single thing in the landscape struck her as recognizable. Yet, she knew she still stood within the very city her father had once involved himself in.

Another vision passed her eyes. Or rather, her mortal eyes gazed at the field of sand while the mind's eye opened to another sight.

She saw the process. The great conspiracy spanning eons laid out before her clairvoyant sight. The fate that would befall her and all magical girls at the end of their days.

"I see… If this is what they call my fate, then…" Her eyes hardened as she steeled her resolve. "No matter what it takes, I'll see about bringing an end to this-"

Suddenly, from behind her stormed a magical girl, right through her own translucent phantasmal body towards the center of the field of sand.

She didn't catch her appearance aside from her short blue hair and blue looking outfit. She didn't have time to get a better look, for soon another one passed through her. And then another. And then another.

Oriko turned around. And her eyes widened like never before.

Before her marched an army. Not of man nor of beasts, but of magical girls. Tens of thousands of young girls dressed in colorful attire but nonetheless ready for battle. From her hometown of Mitakihara, from the neighboring cities of Kazamino and Asunaro, and even from far-off cities like Kamihama, magical girls from all over the world could be seen all in one place. It was a gathering never-before-seen on this Earth, even larger than the battles during the First and Second World Wars. They ran in hurry, with various looks of determination, fear, and hope spread across their faces.

Suddenly the land turned around dark, yet the sky remained its same dark and twilight hue. A great shadow had passed over her, drawing her eyes upward.

Across on the other side of the desert, an enormous fortress that hung in the air flew through the sky, once again towards the center. Its size was immeasurable, and she couldn't even begin to fathom where it came from or how it came to be. Its construction was a unification of unsightly disorder and luxurious beauty, with stone balconies, marble pillars, and plant life of all kind entangled and intertwined over its body.

Below the flying fortress stood another army. Invaders from a land not her own. Their shapes were blurred, and she could not make out if they were human or not. They marched onward, heading straight towards her sisters in arms with spears and swords raised.

She heard a loud crack, a loud sound like a tear was being torn into the fabric of space. At the very center of the desert, high above in the air, what she could only describe as a great red hole opened. Malice and evil poured out from within its maw, a black thick mud that gushed out and turned the very sand into glass as it reached the ground, threatening to return the very Earth into the hellish landscape of primordial days.

As the two armies collided under the great hole, their feet running through the dark mud as it corrupted their very souls, a man garbed in gold suddenly shone high above in the sky. Radiating royalty and raw power, he looked down upon it all and scoffed. From within his hand came a labyrinth of red that sprout outward and up into the heavens. Not a moment after, it all retreated and returned to a single point in space.

Within his hand existed something that never should have existed on this Earth. Something so inconceivable that to just gaze upon it burned her mind and brought forth images of the truth of the land.

He raised the single point in space high above himself as the entire desert was swept by a sudden sandstorm. The space around him seemed to twist and turn until she could no longer see the man. Then the space moved, down and down, until it came twisting towards the Earth.

She could only watch as the Golden King tore the dream asunder.

Oriko Mikuni awoke from the dream, safe within her home, and dropped to her hands.

 _/Did your wish come true?/_

Too out of breath to answer the small cat-like creature named Kyubey, she brought her hands to her face.

How on earth was she supposed to stop that? How on earth was anyone?

 _/What's the matter, Oriko? You seem pale, are you not feeling well?/_

"Doomed…"

 _/What was that?/_

She turned to Kyubey, hands shaking as tears fell from frantic eyes. "We're all doomed. And there isn't anything anyone can do to stop it."

And then Oriko Mikuni fainted.

 _/Oriko? Hey Oriko? Oriko!/_

oOoOo

Eight locations. Eight anomalies. Seven Servants of the World and a young girl appeared on the Earth.

The first, Berserker, a paragon to all men shackled by madness. Found himself deep within a forest at the very outskirts of a city. Sensing his master, he moved towards the lights, with no other thought or desire in his mind.

The second, Caster, a witch of betrayal betrayed by her beloved prince. Wept tears of despair as she screamed yelling an unknown man's name.

The third, Rider, a woman cursed by the gods for her beauty and adoration. Lept high into the skies amidst the skyscrapers of the night and disappeared into the darkness.

The fourth, Lancer, a demonic hound born a child of light. Blinked in surprise in the middle of a highway before being knocked unconscious by a speeding truck.

The fifth, Assassin, hidden and out of sight.

The sixth, Archer, a broken guardian of scales filled with nothing but regret. Stood high atop the highest building in the city and sighed before vanishing like a ghost.

The seventh, daughter of the third cradle, a little girl with bright red eyes, albino skin, and long white hair that captured the brilliance of the moonlight, gasped in surprise as she suddenly found herself in a dark alleyway illuminated only by the light of the moon and dim street lights beyond the alley.

She heard a noise from behind her and quickly turned around. From within the darkness came two men. One with a tall lanky build and the other slightly shorter but with his sleeves pulled up to reveal tattooed and muscular arms. Both wore baggy and scruffy looking clothing. Both had a knife in their hands with sinister and predatory grins.

"Hehe, little ten-year-old girls shouldn't be in dark alleyways all by themselves you know. Don't know what kind of monsters could be lurking there," said the tall one.

"Why don't you come with us? We'll keep you niiiice and safe," said the other, beckoning with a hand and raising his knife a little higher until the girl could see her distorted reflection upon its rusty surface.

She raised an eyebrow. Then her misplaced trepidation gave way to a giggle.

"You're right. There're all sorts of dangerous monsters in dark alleyways," she said with the high pitched and soft voice of a child but with the nurtured elegance of a regal lady. The two men looked at each other, wondering if the other also misheard the humor in her voice.

She moved her hand through her long white hair and pulled a single strand between two fingers. Holding the silvery strand on the palm of her hand, she smiled as her red eyes opened wide.

"Say, misters, would you two like to see a magic trick?"

And the last, Saber, a disgraced king in search of redemption...

oOoOo

Found herself at a loss.

One moment, she had been engaged in a duel to the death protecting her master from the mad servant, Berserker. The next, she was here, with neither her master or Berserker to be seen anywhere.

She didn't even know where here was.

Saber took in her surroundings. It was the middle of the night. She stood in the middle of park lit by elegant lamps and several fountains of water with light running along their edges. Surrounding her on all sides were skyscrapers dotted with lights of yellow and a small assortment of other colors.

Her first guess was that she was in Fuyuki City's financial district. But something seemed off. She didn't recognize the current arrangement of buildings surrounding her. The architecture was too clean and seemed to have a silvery sheen no matter where she looked. The skyscrapers were too tall, with the ones directly beside her almost twice as tall as the ones she remembered. Even the technology seemed different. Small things like the lights around the park and the ergonomic appearance of the benches.

She also noticed how there didn't seem to be anyone else besides her here. Although, it was deep in the middle of the night when she first left her master's house, which was an hour or two ago. She guessed it was probably 1-3:00 AM right about now.

Saber closed her eyes and expanded her senses, searching for the servant-master bond that she shared with her partner in the Holy Grail War.

Nothing.

Or rather, the contract was still there, but the master was not. No matter how hard or how far she searched, she could not find that foolish boy anywhere.

She only then noticed that she was no longer receiving mana from her master either.

Panic gripped her, but only for the briefest of moments before rationality took over. She hadn't begun to disappear yet and she still seemed to be receiving a lit bit of mana from the Holy Grail itself, which meant that wherever here was, so too was the Grail. She also didn't feel the World's constant and overwhelming pressure to erase her unnatural presence from its domain, the whole point why she needed the mana to continue existing from her master to begin with.

This whole situation was far too strange for her liking.

Saber willed her heavy armor away, leaving her in a blue medieval dress. It was not the best disguise, but she had no other clothes, and it was far better than walking around with her armor on.

With many questions and no answers in sight, Saber began to explore the city.

oOoOo

After an hour or so of searching, Saber concluded she was definitely not in Fuyuki anymore. She was still in Japan if the various signs and shops were any indication. Though if not Fuyuki, where had she been taken too? And how?

Saber was slightly worried her current medieval dress would attract too much attention. She had tossed away her yellow rain jacket in the battle prior and now had no means of disguise. But the streets were empty, and she could not find a single soul.

This she found a bit odd. In a big bustling city such as this one, even as late as it was into the night, there was bound to be an occasional person or group wandering around, one reason or another. But even after an hour of walking through several streets and alleyways, not a single person could be found.

After two hours, she finally found somebody. Off in the distance, a block away was a woman with short lavender hair and dressed in a business woman's outfit. She walked across a pedestrian crossing with a slight slouch to her back, arms dangling lazily in front of her with her eyes vacant and empty.

Saber jogged over to her position, reaching her just before she turned the corner.

"Pardon me, ma'am," Saber said to the woman as she slowed to a walking pace. "I am quite a fair bit lost and can't seem to remember how I got here. Could you perhaps tell me which city and prefecture I'm in currently and… if…"

Saber had noted before that the woman was acting strange but did not want to assume. Now though, being much closer, she noticed how pale the woman's skin was and how her movements were a little shambly and unnatural. The woman had not even acknowledged her presence, not a turn of the eyes or a slight jump of surprise.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" Saber asked with concern and grabbed her shoulder to try and get her attention.

Her hand dragged the woman's suit down just a bit, revealing at the base of her neck a bright red tattoo with the appearance of a single tear-shaped ember. Its appearance shifted in the light, a couple frames a second burning like a cartoonish fire.

That was most definitely not natural.

Then the woman turned towards her. Her smile was wide, but just like her eyes, empty.

"Oh, hello there little lady. Are you here for the ceremony as well?" the woman asked.

Saber bristled slightly at being thought as a 'little lady' but she didn't show it. There was no way for the woman to know anyway. "Ceremony?"

"Yes, the sacred ceremony. Where all of us will be reborn in flames like a phoenix and ascend together to a new and wonderful world," the woman said with her hands raised up high into the air.

Saber's brows furrowed at the choice of words. "I see. No, this is the first time I've heard of this ceremony. But I am a bit lost and-"

"Oh, you simply must come! The ceremony will be most wonderful, truly an amazing thing!" The woman interrupted and grabbed Saber's hand off her shoulder with both hands. She began pulling Saber towards the direction she had been walking prior. "Quickly, the ceremony will begin shortly and we mustn't be late."

Saber silently followed, or rather, allowed herself to be pulled along. Though it was at a snail's pace with how slow and sluggish the woman was walking. There was something definitely wrong with the woman, perhaps the work of one of the other Servants of the Holy Grail War. Nonetheless, she decided to not sit idly by while this woman was being led somewhere most assuredly her own doom. Hopefully wherever the woman was leading her would lead her to the source of her ailment.

And maybe some answers to her predicament. She wasn't having any luck finding some on her own anyway.

oOoOo

Another hour had passed. Saber had lost sight of the woman who was once dragging her through the streets. Replaced by her was a large crowd of people. Men and women of all ages and sizes surrounded her walking towards a destination she had yet to identify.

No longer were they in light-covered streets. The road was narrow and dark, lit sparsely by the occasional lamp. Large metal pipes ran to and fro both to her sides and above her. The only sound to her ears were the dozens of footsteps shambling in the darkness.

As she walked slowly amongst the crowd, Saber thought silently to herself the events that brought her to this situation. Of all the people she let down. Of all her failures.

In her youth, during her days as a foolish yet hardworking farm girl, Saber was the closest to what humans would call 'happy'. Though she was not one of them, nor could she ever be a part of them, she found joy in the smiles of her neighbors. She relished the sounds of their hearty laughter and watched with unbridled wonder as they went about their daily lives in all their struggles and triumphs. She vowed to protect them, and with a firm and resolute hand pulled the fated blade from the stone. Not out of admiration or love, but because it resonated deep within her as something right and beautiful. She believed that at the end of her long journey, as long as she strived for that golden road, the path she chose wouldn't be the wrong one.

As King, she continuously strived for that vision. She sealed away her heart and emotions away to become the perfect and just king as declared in prophecy. When the invading Saxons, Romans, and even dragons threatened her kingdom, she repelled them with all her wit and the manpower afforded to her by her people. Together with her Knights of the Round Table, she established something akin to what she believed to be a utopia.

A perfect land led by one groomed since birth to be the perfect king. Though she was not arrogant or prideful, she thought her rule to be at least good and true. And to that she was content.

But all was not as it seemed. Strife and bitter resentment grew within her kingdom, though she could not fathom why. Even her trusted Knights began to grow wary of her, some even leaving her service. But she held firm and her rule continued as such. Such was the natural process of government with a perfect king, after all. One who was emotionless and without grief, who judged all her subjects equally and punished those who broke her laws without mistake. Even as her people cried that their beloved King did not understand human feelings, she believed that as long as she stayed true to her golden road, her kingdom would prosper.

That dream ended on the Battle of Camlann, with her holy spear Rhongomyniad thrust through the chest of the leader of a rebellion that split her kingdom in two, her once fellow knight and 'son' Mordred. Though she had emerged victorious, she could only watch from afar with fatal wounds as her kingdom tore itself apart.

When she was thrust forward towards the end of the 20th century, summoned as a Saber-class Servant in the fourth Holy Grail War, she thought it a miracle from God. A second chance to redeem herself and save all the people she had let fall to their demise during her own failed rule. Six Servants and six Masters, a single chance at the Holy Grail. Though it would've been a hard-fought battle, possibly her hardest yet, her foes would fall, just like the Saxons, the Romans, and the dreaded Vortigern himself. For she was the invincible king who knew only victory.

That too ended in failure as well. For she truly was the perfect King who could never understand human hearts. Though she had emerged as the second of the final two Servants, the Grail eluded her grasp. With three command seals, her own master, Kiritsugu Emiya, commanded her to destroy the very object that would've erased her very existence from the annals of time and granted her kingdom a second chance at utopia.

She was summoned once again ten years later into the fifth Holy Grail War to a young boy with the same last name as her last master, Shirou Emiya. She did not know the relation between the two if there were any at all. He seemed pleasant enough, unlike Kiritsugu, albeit foolish. But in the end, it did not matter. She was his Servant for less than a night when she suddenly found herself in this godforsaken city, many miles away from her master leaving him unprotected and vulnerable to other preying Servants and Masters. Some Heroic Spirit she was.

Useless useless useless. Anything she did ended in folly. All her attempts at righteousness ended in despair. Not a single moment in her life was met with success. Her once golden road was nothing but a false illusion. Was she truly that pitiful Why hadn't she listened to Merlin all those years ago? Why had she believed she would have what it took to become King? She wasn't even a boy, yet she had the gall to believe a simple farm girl like herself could wear the crown just as well. Maybe if she were born male, her friend and wife Guinevere would not have fled with Lancelot. Maybe if had listened to her advisors and not pushed away her very knights, her kingdom wouldn't have burned. Maybe if she were just a better Heroic Spirit, she would've wiped that arrogant smirk off that pretty boy's face before her master arrived and won the war.

Maybe if she just died right here, everything would turn out for the best.

Saber's mind ground to a halt. Where had that thought come from? It was most unlike her to think of death so lightly. True, she had many regrets, but she was not one to lie down and give up her country over her own mistakes. She had a wish to fulfill, and could not fulfill that vow if she was no longer of this world.

In addition, she herself was no longer truly alive either. She was a Servant, a Heroic Spirit summoned from the Throne of Heroes outside the universe, granted a second chance by the World to obtain the wish-granting device known as the Holy Grail to undo her rule over Britain in exchange for an existence of servitude as a tool for the Counter-Force. Although never having experienced death herself quite yet as all the other Servants had within the Grail War, as she was contracted by the World when her dying mortal body still clung to life, death as a Servant would not nullify her contract so easily. It would only grant her a brief reprieve until she was summoned once again, sometime into the distant future or an alternate world-line. Death had no meaning for her any longer, for she was now an existence outside the great cycle of life.

Which meant that these thoughts were not her own.

Eye's narrowing, Saber finally looked around and took in her surroundings, before her eyes widened in bewilderment.

"What on Earth?" she whispered, as she found herself in a realm not unlike a nightmare.

It was a large factory, dark and lit only by the multitude of furnaces and graphite crucibles filled with molten-iron that were carried by overhead conveyors along the ceiling. However, the textures, shapes, and lighting of the atmosphere were all wrong. Objects continuously shrunk or stretched in odd proportions and colors were either too bright or too dark. Strange symbols would pop in and out of the air while the sound of a young child's laughter would echo through the walls. It was like she was in actualization of a nightmarish painting.

She also noticed that she was not the only one.

In front of her a couple paces away, the people she had been walking alongside with shambled in a sloppy line towards a ramp that led into the jaws of a large furnace that took up the whole side of the room, its mouth shaped with sharp teeth and covered in that strange nightmarish version of blood. Strange holes and pipes that seemed to serve no function other than to look menacing adorned the black furnace. The fire within looked like multiple sheets of cut paper colored to look like such like out of a school play. Despite its looks, however, Saber had no doubt that the strange fire was real, for she could smell the soot and feel the heat that permeated throughout the air.

About 50 meters away at the front of the group, the business woman from before with short lavender hair, was only just a step away from falling into the fires of the strange furnace.

"No!" Saber yelled out. With a quick burst of prana at her feet, Saber covered the distance in under half a second. With a light but firm chop to the back of her neck, Saber knocked the woman unconscious before grabbing her and jumping a large distance away from the ramp, gently laying the poor woman against the ground on her back.

Saber let out a relieved sigh and stood up. As she turned around, however, that relief turned into apprehension as the crowd of people had suddenly begun shambling towards her, teeth barred and arms up like zombies from a classic horror movie.

A loud metallic whine pulled her attention away from the group and back towards the strange looking furnace. The jaws of the furnace trembled and shook before snapping shut and letting out a loud high-pitched shriek. The strange looking holes that adorned the furnace shifted and turned towards her like eyes while the pipes which served no purpose lost their ridged form and wildly waved about like tentacles. The soft childlike laughter that echoed earlier within the walls had turned into violent sobbing, adding to the cacophony of sounds that echoed throughout the room.

It was truly a nightmare like no other.

Saber grit her teeth and suppressed the chill that went down her spine. It was only natural. Heroic spirit or not, she was still human, and that included all the fears of the absurdly strange and bizarre. But she was a knight. And she would not let simple horrors of the unknown prevent her duty to protect and serve the innocent. Raising her right hand to the side, she prepared to call out Excalibur, her trusted partner and holy sword that she endured many hardships with had in life, only to have her arm grabbed and pulled back by several hands.

"What!?" Saber exclaimed in surprise as she turned her head to the side. The group of people shambling towards her before had now surrounded her and were reaching and grabbing at any part of her that they could hold. She quickly tried to wrench her arm free from their grasp, but their grip was tighter than their footing and all she did was pull them off their feet and made herself a little off balance. The others grabbed her other arm, legs, torso, and neck, and with a grunt fell backward onto the ground in a tangled heap of bodies. More piled right on top of her soon after until only her face was left untouched.

How had she not noticed, she thought to herself. And how did they approach so quickly without a sound?

Saber tried to pull her arm free once again, but the way they were all holding so tightly made Saber hesitant. Saber had the strength to knockback all those on top of her, no doubt. But their minds were not their own if her own short and brief experience was any evidence to their condition, and they clearly in their current state of mind held holding her here more valuable than their own health. If she used all her strength with the way they were on top of her now, she risked breaking more than a couple fingers or arms, and possibly more life-threatening injuries to the ones directly next to her.

The sound of metallic whining echoed throughout the large factory once again. Saber turned her attention back towards the strange furnace. Her eyes widened in actual horror as the pipes off to its side twisted around each other and combined into a very large and heavy arm right over.

It was going to smash both herself and all the innocents with her.

Doubt and indecision filled Saber's mind. If she did nothing, the arms would slam into her and all the people trapping her. She might survive, but the people around her would most likely become paste on the floor. Surely then it would be better to simply free herself from the group with her strength, possibly causing several injuries and maybe a few fatalities, but the lives of the many were worth the exchange of just a couple, right?

But that line of thinking was what originally brought her country to ruin, wasn't it? And what caused even her Knights of the Round to one by one lose their once unshakable faith in her, just as her people had.

Scrambling for a third option, Saber desperately combed through her mind for a way out of this predicament. When she could not and panic overwhelmed her heart, she resorted to begging. "Please… Please wake up!" Saber pleaded. "You're all in danger! If you don't run now, you'll all be crushed!"

But it was for naught. For the people were marked with the kiss of a Witch, and could not nor would not abide by her pleas. For they were entranced within a dream of their own, one where there was no hunger, pain, or sadness. Only everlasting bliss.

The sound of twisting and turning metal marked the end. Time was up.

The mass of metal came down.

Saber closed her eyes.

I'm sorry. I've failed you all again.

" _Tiro_ -" shouted a young and fair girl's voice. Saber's eyes snapped open. The metal arm above her was suddenly wrapped in bright yellow ribbons that seemed to come from all corners of the room.

" _Finale_!" the voice shouted once more, as a bright beam of yellow came from behind her and engulfed the metal arm. The beam continued traveling forward until it blew a hole through the side of the strange furnace, eliciting child-like screams from the surrounding.

The sound of a pair of high heels echoed throughout the room, approaching her position from behind. Saber arched her head upwards and gazed with wide eyes at the upside-down figure of a young girl.

What… What on Earth was she wearing?

Her golden blond hair, topped by a small brown hat with a tail of white fur, curled on each side of her in long and large ringlets. A bright orange-gold gem sat in the middle of a large floral-shaped hair clip on the left side of her head. Her white and yellow long sleeved shirt puffed around her upper arms and was held tightly against her body by a brown corset that pushed up against her rather large and soft-looking chest. Around her waist was a beige skirt with black tips, and covering her legs were grey and white striped leggings. The pair of high heels that drew her attention was actually boots that went up to her knees and like the rest of her outfit was yellow and black.

Everything about her frankly made Saber think of the color yellow.

"That was close wasn't it? Don't worry, you're safe now," the girl said with a reassuring smile and soft golden eyes.

She held out both her hands to the sides and grabbed two flintlock rifles that appeared out of her long sleeves. Without so much as a glance, she pointed and shot at another smaller pipe-arm that the monstrous furnace had sent their way before tossing the rifle away like a used disposable item.

"My name is Mami Tomoe, and I'm here to rescue you!"

Saber could only look on in bewilderment.

oOoOo

Madoka Kaname wasn't having a very good day.

The pigtailed pinkette middle-school girl walked through a large empty neighborhood all on her lonesome back towards her home with her blue schoolbag in hand, a sick and miserable expression on her face. The orange sky above her transitioned slowly into a dark hue as the sun of dawn slowly gave way to twilight night.

She had awoken that day from a terrible dream. The details of the nightmare were a bit hazy, but the parts that remained felt so real. Like a lucid nightmare.

 _She spun and spun upside-down in her tattered blue dress with cacophonous laughter as the husks of skyscrapers orbited slowly around her enormous doll-like body. Twin giant gears stacked one atop the other where should have been legs opened and slammed together, causing blasts of wind from her body and bullets of hail from the clouds to strike the earth. All those beneath her could only watch in helpless terror as she ripped all from their homes and lives._

 _Below, if one looked closely and knew where to look, laid three particular girls dressed in the uniform of Mitakihara Junior High School. One eviscerated across her stomach, another missing an arm with gaping hole through her sternum, and the last a sizable portion of the upper part of her head missing with destroyed grey matter slumped onto the ground. Open and vacant eyes gazed lifelessly at the hell around them._

 _A girl with long raven hair and a simple white and purple magical girl outfit laid on her back on hard and dirty cement. Everything below her waist was crushed into paste under the rubble of a fallen skyscraper, effectively leaving only her upper torso intact. Blood pooled from the wound and multiple lacerations around her arms and chest. Her chest rose and fell slowly with each slow deep breath._

" _N-no, Madoka… Why?" she croaked out. "Y-you said… You promised…"_

Madoka shook her head as she felt an oncoming migraine, trying her best to clear the myriad of blurry images from her head.

Too late.

"Oww…" Madoka groaned as she knelt down and gripped her head.

After about half a minute, the migraine passed. Madoka sighed to herself, mentally kicking herself for trying that again. She couldn't help it. It was only just a dream, but there was something about that nightmare. Something different, something special, that deep down she wanted to remember. Like something important that one would feel like they're forgetting but couldn't recall when leaving to or from their home.

Something about the nameless girl with long beautiful raven hair, half her body crushed under rubble as she looked up at her with violet tearful eyes filled with betrayal and despair.

Needless to say, she didn't get much sleep.

During the day, she was plagued by a serious case of déjà vu. Not the sort where one experiences only one or two particular moments in their day as feeling familiar. It was if she had already lived through that very day of March 16th before. Her mother picked her pink ribbons over her yellow ones, Sayaka grabbing her from behind and playfully claiming her as her wife, her teacher's relationship troubles over the proper style of... cooked… eggs.

Madoka blinked.

That wasn't what happened today… Today? Yesterday?

"What's wrong with me? I'm slowly losing my mind…" Madoka muttered to herself before letting out a depressed sigh. She wasn't even wearing ribbons to being with!

Although she couldn't remember her school day very well, she clearly remembered the images of a life she had already lived and the migraines that came with them every so often in the day. Luckily though, those migraines weren't as bad as the ones that involved her nightmare.

Sayaka Miki, her first and best friend since childhood, offered to take her to the music store and arcade at the local mall to try and clear her mind. The images and migraines never ceased, however, and at certain points even became more vivid and painful.

She actually called Sayaka 'Sakura-san' by accident out of the blue in the arcade. She didn't even know anyone by that name!

In the end, Madoka decided to tell her that she was just going to go back home by herself. She hoped Sayaka wasn't worrying too much about her. Knowing her and how loyal to a friend Sayaka was though, she was probably worried sick.

Madoka briefly considered pulling out her phone and telling her she was really alright when something caught her eye on the other side of the road.

It was-

 _-a small black cat walking across the road towards her. It was Amy, an ownerless cat that wandered around the area often. Maybe at one point, the cat had been owned by someone here, adopted or raised. The confines of one set of walls weren't enough for Amy however, and now it seemed she belonged to the whole neighborhood. Or perhaps, the neighborhood belonged to Amy._

 _Madoka knelt down with an enthusiastic smile, arms open to pick up and pet Amy like many times before. Suddenly, a loud noise like screeching tires came from down the road, accompanied by loud blaring music filled with human roaring. A large black truck had just made a very tight turn at high speeds and was now rushing down the road very far past the speed limit._

 _Heading right towards the startled cat staring at its death like a deer on the road._

 _Madoka moved, but she was too slow, and the truck too fast._

 _She could only watch as the large vehicle left behind Amy's limp body._

" _Nononononono-" Madoka repeated as she ran over, tears streaming down her cheeks._

 _/So tell me, Madoka Kaname. What is the one wish you have that will make your soul gem shine?/_

-a small white and fluffy animal curled up and sleeping in the middle of the sidewalk across the road. It reminded her of a squirrel, but with fluffy white fur and long ears like a rabbit and paws like a puppy. Around its neck like a cross between a collar and a doggy cape was a colorful white and blue handkerchief tied by a dark pink knot at the front.

Long rabbit-like ears perked upward as it slowly opened pale lavender eyes and turned towards her, slightly tilting its head.

"Foouuu?" it said.

Madoka would've squealed with delight if she weren't holding her aching head.

The odd but cute animal slowly stood up and shook off any dirt on its body like a dog. It looked around and around, circling itself and turning its head to the skies and the houses all around him. Like a newly adopted cat taking in its surroundings after being brought into a new home from within an enclosed box. Madoka's heart melted at the display.

Then it began crossing the road towards her, leisurely trotting with a bounce to each step.

Madoka gasped and held her arm out hand open in protest. She turned her head towards the oncoming truck, ready to scream with tears already coming to the corners of her eyes.

But there was no such vehicle. No onlooking strangers. No dead corpses or promises of wishes. Just her under the setting sun.

Madoka felt something move between her legs and circle around her left ankle. She looked down at the small animal looking up at her, slowly swaying its fluffy tailback and forth.

"Fou," it greeted.

"O-oh, hey little guy," Madoka said a little taken aback, though she quickly recovered. She knelt down and petted the odd animal's head, brushing its fluffy scalp backward towards the base of its neck a couple times and then scratching it behind its ears. It purred in delight, eliciting a giggle from her.

She set down her school bag and gently rose the animal's handkerchief with both hands, twisting and turning it while looking for a name or an address. Frowning a little, she slid a finger between it and the animal's neck and searched for perhaps another collar. The animal tilted its head to the side.

"I don't recognize you from around here, are you lost?" Madoka asked with concern, though mostly to herself. She didn't expect any kind of answer.

The animal didn't respond for a brief second but then gave her two nods.

Madoka's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Ah, you can understand me?"

The animal nodded again. "Fou."

That was rare.

"Wooow, that's so cool!" Madoka exclaimed. "Can you also talk too?"

The animal shook its head.

Madoka deflated. "Oh. Well, understanding Japanese is still pretty impressive. Your owner trained you very well! Ah, speaking of your owner, can you show me on a map where you live? Your owner must be worried sick."

The small squirrel-like animal furiously shook its head. It almost looked… upset?

"You don't know how to show me where you live? Or… your owner is not worried sick?"

It sat there for a moment with a tilted head. Then it nodded, paused, then nodded again.

Madoka frowned. Well, that didn't sound very good...

"I see… Well, would you to come and stay at my place for awhile? I don't know if my mom will let me keep you, but I'm sure she'll let me give you some food and shelter for a night."

The animal gave a happy "Fou!" before it jumped on Madoka's hands atop her kneecaps and then climbed on her shoulder. "Woah!" she said a little startled before laughing. "Nimble little fella aren't you?"

Madoka slowly stood up, trying to balance it on her left shoulder. Luckily for her, the animal seemed to do most of the balancing work itself. With her new friend in tow, she picked up her school bag and started walking back home again.

"Do you have a name?" she asked.

It gave a brief nod but paused, tilting its head for a brief moment. Then it shook its head.

"You have a name, but you don't know how to tell me it?"

It nodded. Madoka inwardly cheered to herself for guessing the animal's meaning at least.

"Well, I have to call you something. I'm not very smart, so I can't even begin to guess what your name would be." She brought a finger to her chin in deep thought. "Hmm… How about… Fou-kun?" she suggested.

Its ears perked up. "Kyu! Fouuuu!" it exclaimed happily.

Madoka's smile grew wider as she giggled a quiet 'wehihihi' to herself, finding her friend's reply to be absolutely adorable. "Alright, Fou-kun it is then!"

"Fou!" the newly named Fou-kun replied.

As she walked back to her home with Fou-kun nestled comfortably on her shoulders, she couldn't stop the growing glee in her chest. Like her life had just entered into a new and exciting chapter.

A new and exciting chapter in the life of one ordinary Madoka Kaname. A small town fable of two star-crossed souls and five intrepid hearts. A legendary tale of seven servants of power and seven masters of destiny. A grand epic of the Earth and the World. A song of heroes and the wishes they all held dear.

And so began a new magical tale of fate.

* * *

Queue "Believe" by Kalafina/Yuki Kajiura~

(Or whichever ending song you find fitting)

AN: I came up with this idea several months ago last October in 2017 after going on a MadoHomu shipping spree. I have no idea how it started, one minute I was content with my normal-ish life and then the next I craved to see Homura-chan being happy. It wasn't like I just discovered Madoka Magica either, I originally watched the show when it first came out.

Originally I intended this chapter to be only a wee 2000 or so words long. But then I kinda… just kept adding more and more. Like a lot more. I think this is the longest thing I've ever written all in one go. Like that first part with the Magus of Flowers wasn't even there in the first place, but then ended up being a whole fifth of the chapter. Whoops.

Either way, I hope this story inspires aspiring authors out there at least or even those who are writing a story right now. One of the reasons I wrote this chapter, after all, seeing as there weren't too many Madoka Magica and Fate crossovers. If you think you have a good idea, go ahead and write it! I'd love to read it!

Anyhow, I hoped you all enjoyed my work. I put a lot of time into this one, but I'm glad I was able to finish it and show all of you. Hopefully, I can get the next chapter out by February.

Please read (though I guess you already did that) and review! I'm not shy and I'll take any form of criticisms you've got for me. Spot a grammar or spelling mistake, wrong canon, someone acting out of character, too much angst, I want to know. Praise or flames, anything and everything is helpful for me right now.

Thank you for taking the time to read my author's note, and Happy New Years Everyone!

Original Publish Date: 1/1/2018

Last Updated: 2/1/2018


	2. Chapter 2 - Puella In Somnio

_**Fabula Nova Fatorum Magica**_

 _ **Act I**_

 _ **Chapter 2:**_ _ **Puella In Somnio**_

* * *

oOoOo

 _~A Long Long Time Ago, Yet As If Only Yesterday~_

The afternoon sun shined high above in the infinite blue sky. Generous and kind, it freely gave its warmth and light to a beautiful blue earth.

There, within a city on a small island nation in the back corner of the world, was a school. A pinnacle of modern architecture, great walls of glass covered its wondrous exterior, capturing the brilliance of the clouds and skies across its mirror-like surface. Within, the young of humankind gathered to learn the laws of the land and prepare themselves for the hardships of adulthood.

Behind the main building of the school under its hill was a bright green track field surrounded by a calming ring of trees. Boys and girls of various heights and ages jogged at a steady pace around the ring of red coarse rubber. In the middle atop the field of grass, students performed various training regimens to upkeep their healthy and fit bodies gifted to them by the earth.

A group of three girls walked off to the side, t-shirts a little sweaty from their laps around the track. They laughed, chatted, and then laughed again, enjoying their brief moment of time together before the next class began. From just the three students came a myriad of topics. Their English teacher's constantly rambling about her troubles with men, the cute upperclassman boy from class C-17, that one mathematics problem that drove all three girls insane at the author's poor wording, just to name a few.

Eventually, their conversation came to a particular new student that transferred in a couple days ago.

"That new girl sure is something alright. Her glasses make her look so smart and all, but she couldn't even solve a basic linear inequality," said the tall girl with long purple hair.

"You'd think someone who was stuck in a hospital would have time to study a little. Must be tough…" said the shortest girl in the group with orange hair that curled inward at their ends.

"Yeah, seriously. And tiring out just from warm-up? How pathetic," said the most athletic out of their friend group, a girl with short turquoise hair.

The short orange-haired girl tilted her head with a frown. "Well, she was stuck in a bed for a long time… it's kind of expected."

The tall girl with long purple hair scoffed. "Oh don't feel too bad. I bet she's just a delinquent. Probably just skipped school as long as she could and pretended to be sick."

The short orange-haired girl looked down for a moment and then looked back up towards the aforementioned transfer student, a bespectacled frail and meekly girl with long black hair. She sat on a green metal bench a fair distance away under the shade of a tree, away from the hot light of the radiant sun. Their eyes met, just for the briefest of moments, before the shy transfer student squeaked in fright and bowed her head back down towards the bench.

Sympathy and guilt flashed across the girl's face, but she looked away and kept walking onwards with the rest of her friends. She was only fourteen, what could she do? She wasn't a trained psychologist, she didn't know anything about the girl's circumstances. If anything, she might just make things worse for the poor girl. It was best to not get herself involved. She had her own social life to worry about anyway.

As the trio walked off, the transfer-student looked back up and watched their retreating forms, laughing and having fun in the sun's light. As they turned a corner, disappearing from sight, she looked back at the bench with downcast eyes. Her lips trembled, and her hands balled up into fists, body shaking as tears threatened to erupt from the corner of her eyes.

"Whatcha thinking about, Homura-chan?"

Homura squeaked once more that day with a jump. She turned and looked over her shoulder behind her towards the smiling pigtailed pinkette who was busy enjoying herself braiding Homura's hair.

Nervously scratching her cheeks and avoiding her eyes, she stammered, "O-oh! Ahh, nothing, Kaname-san! Really! I-I was just, umm… thinking about how nice the weather is. Yeah! And how nice it'd be to spend the day out in the sun later..."

The pinkette shook her head. "Nnnn. Lying's no good, Homura-chan."

Homura fell silent and turned back to the bench. Her head ducked further in shame, shoulders tucked in to be as small as possible.

Two arms from behind surprised her again and wrapped around her in a firm and warm embrace, the pinkette's left hand still holding onto an unfinished braid of her black hair so it wouldn't unravel.

The pinkette said with cheer, "Don't listen to those dummies, Homura-chan. They just don't know the real and cool Homura-chan yet like I know her."

"Y-yeah," Homura replied quietly with light red cheeks.

The pinkette slowly let go and then fastened a cute purple bow tie around the end of Homura's left braid. They continued sitting like that for a while, silently without a word while the pinkette worked on Homura's other braid.

Homura turned her head upward and looked up towards the sky she was not allowed under. How that same beautiful sky had been up there since long before she was born, and would remain long after she was gone. Forever beautiful and infinite, until the end of all dreams.

She looked back down and nervously began playing with the rim of her gym shirt, lightly tugging and stretching it. Her bespectacled violet eyes shifted left and right as she struggled to find the words to properly express her thoughts. "...Umm, Kaname-san," she called to the girl behind her, quiet and shy. "Are you really alright with… someone like me?"

Soft and gentle hands paused their work and then the pigtailed pinkette tilted her head to the side. The young girl glanced over her shoulder but could not bring herself to look into the other's questioning look. She held her hands over her chest, right over her diseased heart. "I'm… worthless after all. I can't do anything. All I do is just cause trouble for everyone around me. I'll never be of any value, nor will I ever be of use to anyone. All I can do is just exist... and I'll continue to exist this way. Today, tomorrow… forever and always…"

She swallowed the hard lump in her throat, shaking like she had suddenly come down with a fever. "S-so… b-being your friend is-"

"Homura-chan."

Homura turned towards the girl that spoke her name with such happiness.

With a beaming and cheerful smile, she said, "We were already friends. From now on, and forever."

The girl finished braiding Homura's twin French braids and fastened the last purple bow to the right braid's end. Wide eyes followed the girl as she got up from her seat and stood in front of her with a hand out. "Always."

Her infectious smile brought a small one to the gloomy girl's own. "Okay," Homura said quietly, swelling with an emotion she hadn't felt in her weak heart for a long time.

Slowly, Good-For-Nothing reached out and took the kind goddess' hand.

"Always."

And so it was that Homura Akemi found her happiness in life. The hand she held together with her first and only friend a symbol of their bond and the hardships to come.

And she would never let it go. No matter how far or how deep she would be dragged into the depths of hell and despair, she would always stay by Madoka Kaname's side. So long as her dearest friend smiled, she would be happy. For that was her only desire, her one true wish.

Such was the unending dream of the girl who leapt through time.

oOoOo

 _~At The End of Time, The Present Moving Onwards Towards The Past~_

A young and elegant-dressed girl with beautifully long and flowing raven hair drifted listlessly within an open space without an up or a down. Surrounding her were abstract walls of blue and white, jagged branching lines of black leading from the back end of the space to the other. The canvas of shapes and colors rushed past her still form as the time tunnel pulled her forwards into the past. She held her knees close to her chest, stifling the tears that threatened to erupt from her tightly shut eyes as best she could.

She had finally done it. After countless attempts and innumerous repeated timelines, she had arrived at the final step towards the impossible. She had finally brought together the four magical girls of Mitakihara under one banner. Mami Tomoe, Sayaka Miki, Kyouko Sakura, and herself. Standing together side by side against the terror of Walpurgisnacht, the most powerful of all witches.

It had taken a miracle beyond what she had thought possible. Every timeline before the last ended in some form of failure. One, two, sometimes all three of them ended up dead before the final battle with the strongest witch. Some were caused by unfortunate accidents or circumstances derived from their difficult personalities. Others, more often than not, were caused by her own coldness or lack of sociability, leading the others to distrust her or even on occasion outright declare her their enemy.

But somehow, even this one small chance in a thousand had happened.

The four of them had become friends, believe it or not. Mami Tomoe, the mother-like figure of their group, who watched over them and sometimes chided them for their improper behavior. Sayaka Miki, foolhardy but brave, always wanting to go out hunting witches and saving the world. Kyouko Sakura, brash and abrasive, always trying to steal pieces of their food during lunch and getting into fights with Sayaka.

And Madoka. Sweet, innocent, and kind Madoka. Always thinking about others rather than herself. It was she who had made it happen, she who had brought the five of them together with her bleeding heart and determined spirit. She who took that one leap of faith, and put her trust in a strange and creepy stalker of a girl when no one else would. She who had believed her unbelievable tale when she had opened up her heart to her in an accidental moment of weakness. She who held her close and told her that everything was going to be alright.

And it was the closest they'd ever been before.

Always checking up on her before class. Always snatching her protein drinks away during lunch and feeding her herself with the real food she and her father made. Always pulling her along when the group went out to enjoy their day. Always insisting on tagging along on her witch hunts with the others and worrying about her safety. Always making her feel wanted and loved.

Madoka even asked her out on a date. Just a friend date, of course. Madoka deserved a _boy_ who could keep her safe and happy, unlike some weirdo like herself. But it was pleasant, and it was still something Homura had never even dreamed of ever happening again. Eating, talking, laughing together. Sitting side by side as they watched the evening sun set, hands together and their bodies close.

 _So very close._

It was a dream come true. For the first time in a long while, she really began to truly hope again.

And yet...

...

...In the end, it was all for nothing.

The impossible stood still. Walpurgisnacht had defeated them all, hanging still in the air with cacophonous laughter. There was not a single scratch on the monstrosity's enormous doll-like body. The combined assault of four magical girls and an army's worth of military-grade explosives and weaponry hadn't even put a dent into the stage-constructing witch's defenses.

Then came the casualties.

Mami had taken a blow to her head and was flung through five buildings, scattering brain matter and her shattered soul gem all over the city as she fell to the earth. Kyouko, after a lengthy assault against hundreds of the magical-girl-like familiars of the witch, was finally done in by a sword through her back then a spear through her chest. Sayaka, even with all their preparation and training for their newest magical girl, was helpless as she was held in place by the witch's absurd telekinetic powers and eviscerated by a blast of wind. And then there was herself, the last bastion of humanity, crushed under a skyscraper. Useless with only half her body, leaving her the last alive to watch as Walpurgisnacht tore her hope apart.

And then Madoka...

Sweet, innocent, and kind Madoka...

 _Goodbye, Homura-Chan._

 _May you find happiness on the other side._

The dam broke. A loud cry echoed in the space without time. Emotions held in shut within an iron heart for hundreds of timelines and decades of years came pouring out all at once. Her cheeks red, her mouth opened wider than ever before in a cry of anguish. Shoulders shaking and knees trembling against her chest. The black leggings of her magical-girl outfit soaked in the tears of her despair.

And so Homura Akemi wept.

And wept.

And wept.

Even when the tears eventually stopped, the glands of her eyes long since dried out, she still held her knees close, whimpering. Drifting half-heartedly forwards towards the beginning so that she may begin the abyss anew once more.

...

…

And then…

...Something different.

...Something new.

The sensation of a hand around her left ankle. In a space where nothing but her should exist.

So she looked down, eyes still red with tears.

It was undoubtedly a hand, feminine and paler than her own. Connected to a long slender arm. Attached to a grown undressed woman with long pearl hair. With a pair of red crimson eyes that stared at her lifelessly. An unforgettably perfect face devoid of any and all emotions.

"W-wha?" Homura let out. Her despair morphed into confusion.

When did… how did… who was-

A small black and fuzzy spot appeared on the side of the woman's forehead. It grew and grew, from a small birthmark into large patch of skin. Then came another one on the woman's thigh. Then one on her left breast just above the nipple. Then on both her arms, her feet, everywhere. Growing and covering the woman's form.

And just when the fuzzy blackness completely covered the woman's body and almost covered her face, she _smiled_. A sinister sneer so wide and unnatural it could not have belonged to a human at all.

A chill down her spine, a sudden intake of breath. Her anguished heart now with foreboding dread. Homura instinctively straightened from her curled form and placed a single haphazard kick into the _thing's_ face. It let go, easily without struggle, and fell quickly into the back of the time tunnel until Homura could see her no more.

That's when everything fell apart.

Off in the distance, from the very back of the time tunnel, was that very same fuzzy blackness. A small black spot, easily confusable with the converging jagged and branching black lines coming from the front end of the tunnel towards the back. Yet, the black spot _grew_ , inching towards her ever so slowly over the abstract rushing canvas of blue and white.

Homura could do nothing but watch with wide eyes as the blackness slowly covered the tunnel. She twisted and turned, looking all around in disbelief as it encroached towards her. Ten seconds in and the blackness had reached her and covered the walls directly around her. Twenty seconds in and it had reached the front of the tunnel, leaving her in a space of nothing but the deepest black she ever laid eyes upon.

She then noticed that she was no longer drifting gravityless either, but standing on something thick and wet. A thick viscous fluid covered half her soles. Her own body still seemed to be lit by the same white light when the tunnel was still blue, allowing her to see her current state. She attempted lifting her foot, which actually came out quite easily to what she was actually expecting. Not a trace of the black fluid stuck to her feet.

"Is this… mud?" Homura asked quietly to herself.

She looked around herself, confused and slightly frightened. Nothing but utter blackness surrounded her vision, not a single unique structure or marking to differentiate her location. She took a step backwards, overwhelmed by the vast strangeness of it all.

And then a hand came up from the the mud and grabbed her by the ankle once again, quickly followed by another on her other. Homura's head jerked down with wide eyes.

From out within the mud was only the pale head of that _thing_ , looking up at her with its red eyes and inhuman sneer.

Homura tried freeing her feet, but to no avail. Its grip was simply too tight. She reached down with her hand to try and bat the offending hands away but jerked back when _another_ pair of arms reached out from within the mud and grabbed hold of her legs.

Something white at the corner of her eyes. Homura looked up again. Terror gripped her soul.

Surrounding her on all sides was no longer just the distant utter black of the strange environment, but a white wall twenty meters away of pale perfectly-crafted bodies stacked one upon the other. Each and every one had that same perfect yet emotionless face. All of them, no matter their angle, stared into her being with their unblinking red eyes.

A shift in the mud. Homura's height shortened, and the feeling of the mud moved up past her soles to her ankles, followed quickly by her calves.

She was being dragged down into the mud.

Before Homura could even attempt to pry the hands off her legs, two more came up and grabbed her by the wrists, followed quickly by numerous others that grabbed at all parts of her body, even her hair.

"W-what is this?!" she cried out as she was gradually pulled under, the mud now to her waists. "No, stop! No! Nonononono! Stop! _Stop_!" she pleaded helplessly, to no avail.

The mud quickly reached her stomach. And then her chest. Soon, only her head rested above the mud, a flurry of small hands gripping at her cheeks and every bang of hair.

And so, swelling with an emotion she hadn't felt in her iron heart for a long long time, Homura Akemi screamed not in despair, but in horror.

And then the black mud swallowed her whole.

oOoOo

 _~A Couple Weeks Prior, Yet An Eon Had Passed~_

Homura Akemi jolted up with a gasp, sweating and breathing heavily like she just had a most terrible nightmare. Her weak heart thudded painfully in her chest from the rush of adrenaline.

Immediately, her hands searched around her chest and stomach, her legs and hips, then her face. Everything was still there, present and unharmed. She quickly looked around and took in her surroundings, braids swinging back and forth in the air.

She was in a hospital gown within a hospital bed. The morning sun shined through the thin blue shades of the glass walls to her right, illuminating her clean white bed sheets. In front of her bed was an empty white and blue armchair. To her left was a small wooden table. Student registration forms and a guide for new students to Mitakihara Junior High School sat under a purple pen and a glass paperweight in the middle, and at the corner was her old large red glasses from her days as a weak and pathetic nobody. Behind her and the table was a large whiteboard on wheels marked with calendar dates, a red flower drawn in marker surrounding one particular square. March 16th, the day it always began.

She swung herself out of the bed and ran to the bathroom, flicking the light switch on as she entered. She stared into her blurry reflection, confused before remembering she normally needed glasses to see even inches in front of her. She pulled out her amethyst soul gem and magically reinforced her weak eyes and heart, her vision clearing and the thumping pain in her heart subsiding. Her reflection stared back at her, same as it was before like all the other timelines. Not a single taint or change in skin color.

She undid her braids and then tried transforming into her magical girl attire. Her egg-like soul gem disappeared from her palm and reappeared on the back of her left hand. Light wrapped around her body as her hospital robe disappeared and was replaced by a rather plain looking outfit, a white coat over a grey indigo mini-dress with black leggings. On her left arm was a small round and ornate metal shield, a single closed metal eye at the center in between a pair of smaller ones above and below it.

The three eyes suddenly opened, revealing an intricate clockwork mechanism in the middle eye and two glass orbs of red sand flowing down from one orb though the clockwork to the other. The clockwork gears then moved, the shield turned sideways, and the red sand paused like an hourglass held on its side. The world turned grey as the passage of time froze around her.

For that was her gift as a magical girl. To stop time at her command. And if need be, return herself to the moment it all began.

The eyes of the shield closed and turned upright. The flow of time resumed as the world was returned its vibrant colors once more. She walked back to her bed, her outfit glowing with purple light before giving way to her mundane hospital gown. She sat on its soft foam edge and thought to herself.

She was alive. Nothing seemed to be out of place. Everything seemed to be in working order. She held her soul gem up to her eyes. It shined brilliantly in the sun's light, radiant and vibrant as ever, with not a single speck of darkness within it.

"What… what happened to me? Was all that... just a nightmare?" she asked.

The empty white room offered no answers.

oOoOo

"That was close wasn't it? Don't worry, you're safe now," she said with a reassuring smile and soft golden eyes.

She was on patrol tonight. Like a lone heroic vigilante out of a classic American comic book, she scoured the dark crime-filled streets in the name of love and justice. Only she wasn't hunting criminals, not that there were many in the city in the first place; Mitakihara had one of the world's lowest crime rates after all, but witches; lovecraftian creatures that hid in the darkness and fed on human misery and despair. At least, that's what she likened herself as, the hero of justice part specifically. Maybe a demon hunter from a manga or an anime would have fit her description better. Though, that didn't have the same justice vibe to it, and she was all about justice.

She took it all upon herself to do all that too, saving the innocents and all that. Contrary to what most might believe about Kyubey and the magical girl system, she was not forced to do so by anyone else but herself.

Though a magical girl required grief seeds, a small round residue of a defeated witch, to cleanse her soul gem and restore her magic, she wasn't someone who got high on her own magic use in the first place. The only reason she went out to restore said magic was because she spent it hunting witches in the first place. She totally could have stayed home and continued her ordinary school life, as some magical girls did unfortunately. But not her. She was given a rare and precious gift. In exchange for a lifetime of servitude of defending the Earth from witches, she was granted a single wish. And she fully intended to fulfil that bargain.

Normally, she kept herself to a strict schedule. Two to three hours of patrolling after class, followed by homework and at least an hour of studying for exams. She used whatever leftover time that remained afterwards to do various other chores around the house before she cleaned herself up and went to bed, ready for the next day. That didn't leave much time for socializing for her unfortunately, leaving her with not many friends, if any at all. But it was a sacrifice that she felt was worth keeping her city safe.

Today however, she had a slight change in plans. She had miscalculated the amount of groceries she needed for herself the previous Sunday, leaving herself severely lacking food and house supplies. At the time, she figured a small lapse in routine wouldn't hurt anyone, and thus decided not to go witch hunting that evening. She felt very guilty about it afterwards though, and couldn't stop worrying about what might've happened to someone who had fallen prey to a witch because she wasn't there to save them. So, after midnight when all the people of Mitakihara had fallen sound asleep, she silently opened up her apartment window high up in the air and lept into the night sky.

The city seemed fine, all things considered. There were no screams of terror, no large fires, no catastrophe's of world-ending proportions. It was just quiet old Mitakihara. And after an hour or so into the night, it seemed to just remain that. Quiet and peaceful.

That's when she knew something was terribly wrong.

See, witches never came out into the daylight, nor did they come out into the darkness of the night. Each had their own little evil layer called a witch's labyrinth, pocket dimensions that defied current society's knowledge of physics. Normally invisible to the human eye, they could only be tracked and revealed by the magic from a magical girl, and once found would often appear in the air like a mirage and an animated abstract painting. Sometimes a poor fellow would wonder in through their invisible gates, generally someone who was really down on their luck. More often than not however, they were lured into it, marked by a kiss from the witch which put them under their spell and control.

Even though it was late into the night, Mitakihara was still a port city. Though she hadn't expected a large rucus of noise, there was usually at least some people wandering about, either from late night partying or late shifts at work. But the part of the city she was in within a very large radius was barren without a single soul. At best, it could have just been a harmless a coincidence. Everyone at home at the proper times receiving a healthy and well-deserved amount of sleep.

At worst, a very powerful witch was about to kill a lot of people.

Witch auras could usually be found near fatal accidents or a recent area of a suicide; they were usually the cause of them in the first place. Finding them before said events occured was harder, as witches left little to no traces. But simply finding them after a death was no good for her. Though not perfect or omnipresent, she still tried her best to save everyone she could. If she could even save one more life, then she just had to try. And there were a lot more lives than one on the line this time.

She searched and searched for anybody shambling about with a witch's Kiss on their neck, watched the streets as she hopped between rooftops and balconies. Thirty minutes in, she finally found one near the river that bisected the city. After knocking them out and placing them safely against a wall, she headed in their previous general direction, finding more people along the way as the trail took her further east.

The trail led her to a large abandoned factory in the old part of Mitakihara, back when the city was only just a small town. Once upon a time it had been bustling with activity, with hard working people moving to and fro its factory lines producing steel and other metals. Now, the rusted steel pipings hardly reflected the white moonlight, and the old concrete walls were discolored and covered in vines. The sight had filled her heart with a distinct melancholy, a reminder of the passage of time.

As she drew closer to its walls, her soul gem glowed brighter and brighter, a dim light into a beacon in the night. When she finally reached the factory's large and locked front doors, her soul gem shined and ringed like a windchime. Before her eyes, the abstract gate of the witch's labyrinth revealed itself to her, beckoning her inside.

She took a deep breath and steeled her frightened will, stepped forwards into the gate, and disappeared from the Earth.

When she finally crossed to the other side, she felt a significant burst of magic wash over her. Her first assumption was the presence of another magical girl, a rather powerful one at that. It definitely gave her quite the unexpected jump.

Moving deeper into the labyrinth, she came upon an unexpected sight. A blonde girl about her age and height in a blue dress, wrestling with before being tackled to the ground by a horde of people marked by the witch.

Her second assumption was a powerful but inexperienced magical girl.

When the Furnace Witch finally revealed itself and raised a giant arm to crush the new magical girl and the innocent mind-controlled people on top of her, she quickly made her move.

Which all led to the current moment.

She held out both of her hands to the sides and summoned two flintlock rifles. Without so much as a glance, she pointed and shot at another smaller pipe-arm that the Furnace Witch had sent their way before tossing the used firearm away.

And so she introduced herself to the scared and trapped girl. "My name is Mami Tomoe, I'm here to rescue you!"

She couldn't help but feel elated as she watched the girl's wide-eyed expression change from one of fear and despair to one of awe and amazement.

The witch decided at that moment to roar with a shrill scream again. A hundred metallic pipes erupted from the back and sides of the furnace, flailing widely in the air with their ends sharpened into white-hot spears.

She calmly looked back at the witch with not an inch of fear. "Oh dear, still with that much strength?" she said with mock worry. She turned towards and bowed politely at the poor girl lying underneath all those bodies. "Please excuse me, but I have to wrap this up first."

Five metallic tendrils quickly flew straight at her at very high speeds, one after the other. A normal human would've been impaled straight away. Only a trained soldier would've had the reflexes to notice the change in stagnant behavior. Even then, they too would have been too slow to move or dodge the attacks. Such was the limitations of the normal human body.

But Mami Tomoe was no normal human being. She was a magical girl, an enhanced lifeform gifted with high durability and magic. A defender of justice, hope, and friendship.

She sidestepped towards the left twice as both the first and second tendrils missed and impaled the concrete floor. She jumped high over the third and summoned another rifle and fired at the fourth, knocking it off course into one of the smaller furnaces lining the walls. The fifth curved around to strike her from behind while she was in the air, but a very large pair of yellow ribbons appeared from the ground and redirected it into the floor.

Landing on the first two tendrils like a makeshift bridge, she began sprinting towards the Furnace Witch.

The witch screamed once more as if in fury. This time, not five but fifty tendrils came soaring after her, one after the other and each just as fast as the last.

But Mami Tomoe was not dismayed. She was not just any ordinary magical girl after all, but a veteran, a title within the magical girl community that was not given lightly. To be marked a veteran by Kyubey meant that one had not only served many years as an esteemed magical warrior, but was one of their most powerful as well. And she had full intentions to make use of all her power and experience in this fight.

Besides, she had to impress the new girl afterall.

With stunning agility, discipline, and grace, she dodged every single attack. Sidestepping, jumping, ducking, and even at times using one of the other tendrils as a springboard or a monkey bar, she avoided them all without a single use of her magic. It was as if watching both an elegant dance and a circus performance, one played many times before by actors of unparalleled renown.

The witch shrieked almost twice as loud as before as it grew frustrated at the small girl mocking her every move. The surrounding environment seemed to get hotter and hotter as the smaller furnaces and pipeworks glowed brighter and brighter. The conveyor belts and various machineries moving faster and more erratic with the witch's increasing rage. She had to finish this quickly, lest she and all the innocent people behind her be burnt to a crisp.

She was almost upon it now, only twenty-so meters away. The witch abruptly recalled its tendrils, flicking in particular the first two she was running on and sending her backwards and high up in the air above it. With a hundred of its tendrils at its disposal once more, it prepared to launch them all at once at her helpless groundless form.

But she had another trick up her sleeve, both figuratively and literally. From within her sleeve she pulled out another rifle and took aim at the mass of pipes below her.

From behind her, hundreds of the same rifle hung in the air like her own personal army. All of them following her gaze and pointed at one specific location.

She winked at the Furnace Witch and said, "It was fun, but I'm afraid I'll have to end this here."

And then with a battle cry of, " _Tiro Volley_!", she fired.

Fire and iron rained down upon the witch, shredding its tendrils and form with countless holes as it shrieked in pain. The assault surrounded the witch in a cloud of dust, a testament to the sheer destructive power brought on by her bullethail.

Mami landed lightly and with grace, arms out like an Olympic gymnast. Turning towards the dust cloud, she said, "You're a little bit tougher than other witches, aren't you? It's rare that I have to do this more than once on a witch."

She raised her hand and summoned a long glowing yellow ribbon. Quickly the long yellow ribbon grew in size and wrapped around itself cylindrically before hardening into a long steel shape. Within only two seconds, she had an enormous percussion-lock cannon more than five times her size.

Suddenly, a single large spike made from a bundle of damaged tendrils burst through the smoke, intent on impaling her in a desperate final strike.

Mami only smirked. It would never get the chance. "This will finish you! _Tiro Finale!"_

A great glowing light of volatile magical energies emerged from the cannon's barrel and engulfed the spike, incinerating it into nothing. It continued traveling down its length until it slammed into the main body of the witch, the entire length of the beam coalescing into a single point within its iron jaws at the center of its body.

Mami simply turned around, a satisfied smile on her face with an open hand held up over her right shoulder. The witch behind her exploded, engulfed by a large and bright orb of fire and kinetic energy. A small and black grief seed shot out from within the flames, riding the waves of the blast until it landed in her palm.

Cool girls don't look at explosions. And this was one of her best performances yet, so she thought to herself.

With its death, the nightmarish surroundings of the witch's labyrinth gave way to reality once more, bringing back forth the old abandoned factory. No child-like screams, no fires or monsters. Just herself under the pure moonlight shining from above within the large atrium.

Mami looked back towards where she had left the civilians and the other magical girl. There they were still, a dogpile of unconscious people. "Coast is clear! It's safe to come out now!" she yelled out as she walked towards them.

The pile began to shift a bit. No longer gripping tightly at each other, they each began to slide off one another. A moment later, the girl at the bottom began to crawl out from underneath their heavy weight. Specifically from the back, facing away from Mami and where the witch last stood.

Facing away… Wait a minute...

"Ah…" Mami muttered to herself as she shoved her face into her hands, cheeks red from an embarrassing realization. The new girl probably hadn't seen anything at all from her angle, probably only heard her yelling battle cries out of an anime like a little kid. So much for first impressions.

Oh well. Everyone was safe, and that was the main thing that mattered.

When she looked back up, her breathing hitched.

The girl stood back towards her with a slim but broad figure that betrayed no fear or weakness. Her royal blue dress was outlined by thin stripes of pure gold that shined in the light. Her skin was light and fair, like a princess from a fairytale. Her fine hair was blonde like her own, though a yellowish platinum than her own darker gold, and was wrapped by a single braid around its circumference into a large ballet bun. A big blue ribbon hung under the circular braid. From her angle, perhaps a trick of the eye, her hair even glistened in the moonlight like gold dust.

She radiated beauty, dignity, and strength. Even though they were roughly the same height and age, the other girl a tad bit shorter perhaps, she couldn't help but feel a little smaller within her presence.

Then the girl turned towards her, and she froze like an icicle. Sharp and piercing emerald eyes held her in place, like a lion discerning whether she was a friend or a foe. One wrong move or even a hint of deceit and she would be on her before she could even blink.

And then it was gone. Just as quick as it came, so brief like it was never there. With a small and genuine smile, the girl gave her a bow of gratitude. Had she just imagined it?

"Tomoe-san, was it? I humbly thank you for saving my life. You are quite the skilled magus," she said with a firm yet elegant tone in perfectly fluent Japanese. Her features were definitely Caucasian, like a princess out of a western movie. An immigrant, or maybe even the daughter of a visiting businessman or politician perhaps?

Wait, magus?

"O-oh, why thank you!" Mami stammered, fidgeting a bit before she recaptured her composure. "And it's no problem at all. I was in the area looking for these people anyway. It's a magical girl's duty to defeat witches and protect the innocent after all."

The girl gave her a strange and puzzled look, but refrained from saying anything. Was it something she said?

Oh no. Was she like Kyouko? She wasn't the type that only preyed on witches for themselves and sometimes even fed humans to familiars and witches, was she?

She cleared her throat awkwardly and then held out the defeated witch's grief seed towards the other magical girl. Perhaps she could convince her to be friends? If she did turn out to be like Kyouko, hopefully she could steer her away from that path. "This is what you were after, right? Since you're new around here, and I'm also guessing you're new to the whole magical girl thing as well, you can have it. Free of charge."

The girl stared at the object in her palm before slowly extending a hand and picking it up, bringing it up to her eye level. Mami inwardly cheered. She was making progress!

Mami continued, "Usually when a magical girl accepts another magical girl's grief seed, it's a sign of cooperation and partnership within a territory. If it's declined, that's a sign of refusal and essentially means they want to compete for that territory instead. I'm giving this to you with no strings attached though, so don't worry about owing me anything. I personally do hope that you'll accept. It's beneficial and safer to hunt witches in groups after all, and there's plenty of witches to go around here in Mitakihara."

The girl turned the grief seed around and over in her hands, fiddling with it like a new trinket. "I… Thank you. But… what is this?"

...Eh?

"...That's the grief seed. They're sometimes dropped from defeated witches and are used to clean our soul gems and restore our magic," she explained with a concerned frown. She tilted her head. "Odd, Kyubey normally teaches the basics to new magical girls contractees. Did he forget to mention grief seeds to you?"

"Kyubey? I must apologize, but I don't know anyone by that name."

Mami blinked owlishly.

"You... don't know who Kyubey is? Small, white and cuddly animal, kind of like a cat but can talk and has long ears? Looks like a stereotypical magical girl mascot out of a kid's show?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I cannot recall such a creature. And I am unsure why you keep emphasizing the term 'magical girl'. Is it a young woman who can perform magic?"

 _Just a woman who knows how to do magic?_ Has she never watched a cartoon or looked at a T.V. before?

Wait a minute...

Mami brought a hand to her mouth. "O-oh my. You're not just a normal human, are you?"

The girl dropped her expression of confusement and adopted an emotionless poker face. An odd response, probably something insignificant, but one that she definitely picked up on and set aside for later. "Yes, I'm quite sure that I am human. Aren't you?"

Mami just stared at her for a full three seconds. She then let out a sigh, uncharacteristically slouching forward with her head towards the ground. "Ah, I've made a terrible mistake then," she muttered quietly to herself.

She righted herself back up with a soft smile and welcoming eyes once more. "My apologies. I incorrectly assumed you were one of us.

"I'm guessing you have a lot of questions, which I'll be happy to answer. But first, would you mind assisting me helping these people up over there?" She pointed towards the nearest wall, the floor dusty with some foliage sprouting from cracks in the concrete. "They'll be a little confused when they wake up, but at least they won't be on top of each other, right?"

The other _non-magical_ girl nodded, and proceeded to help her prop each civilian one by one against the factory walls.

oOoOo

The pair of girls walked on silently in the night, Mami in front and leading the foreign girl from the old eastern part of the city across the bridge to the high-class residential district near the center of Mitakihara at a fork in the river.

Eventually, they reached her residence, a high-class apartment studio many flights of stairs above ground. Mami opened her door and beckoned the other girl inside. She closed the door behind herself, making a soft click as the door locked itself shut.

The foreign girl walked into the center of her living room near a wooden table and looked around, taking in the sight. She followed her moving gaze, feeling a small sense of pride at her own home.

It was fancy and fully furnished apartment studio, an ultra-modern maisonette. Her walls were a yellowish white. The various paintings, books, bean-bag chairs, and other decorations were in soft pastel colors. A wooden table sat in the middle over a black and white carpet, surrounded by three chairs. The room held a welcoming warmth to it, one Mami herself spent a long time preparing for potential guests.

She decided to speak up when the girl was admiring one of her abstract paintings. "Sorry for the long walk so late into the night, you must be tired," she said, apologetic.

The girl turned around towards her and shook her head with a smile. "I am quite alright and awake. No, it should be I who should be apologizing to you for troubling you for saving my life."

Mami laughed a little at that, a little sheepish at the flattery. "Ahahah. Well, like I said earlier, it's a magical girl's duty to protect the innocent after all, so no need for apologies here either."

She gestured wide with a hand across her living space. "I live here alone, so feel free to make yourself at home. I only have tea at the moment as far as refreshments go, but I can also bring you some cake if you like."

The girl perked up at the mention of cake. "Yes, that will do nicely."

Mami smiled at that and left for the kitchen.

As she entered, she realized she was still in her magical girl form. With a snap of her fingers, she dismissed her magical girl uniform in a flash of yellow light and redonned her school uniform; a tan blouse with a plaid skirt, a big red ribbon at her collar.

She walked over to her colorful magnet decorated fridge, glanced at an old picture tacked to the front with both her parents holding her 5-year-old hands, smiled, and then pulled out a small pink cardboard box with 'cheesecake' labeled on its cover. She walked across to the other side of the kitchen and brewed some tea, using a bit of her magic to heat the water on the stove quicker. Placing the tea and cake on a tray with a small fork, she walked back towards the living room.

When she came back, she found her guest instead in the apartment's family room next to its glass walls, a hand on the wall-sized window while looking out into the dark cityscape of Mitakihara lit by the light of the moon. She walked over and set the tray down on the small and low glass table just a short distance away from the window and then walked up next to the other girl. "Beautiful, isn't it? Even at night, maybe even more so, the sight of Mitakihara is still so breathtaking," she said to the girl, eyeing the river as it gave a wavy reflection of the full moon.

The girl didn't respond, as if in deep thought. After a moment, she spoke. "...Yes, it is," she said, and then turned towards her. "I've never seen quite a view like this before in my life. You have my thanks again," she said with another polite bow. Her eyebrows then rose as she looked over her form. "Ah, I see you've changed your clothes. Quite quickly I might add. I thought I had just heard you come out of your kitchen?" she said in a confused tone.

"I'll explain that bit shortly. Please, have a seat," Mami said, motioning towards the low table surrounded by three seating cushions. "I brought some black tea and cheesecake. I hope these are to your liking."

The girl eyed the table then moved for the yellow cushion. She knelt down onto the cushion and sat on her ankles, a formal manner that Mami noted to be in traditional seiza. She internally rose an eyebrow, but made no comment, the word royalty coming to the front of her mind. Mami took a similar but more casual position, laying on her thighs atop a pink cushion on the other side of the small table.

"I suppose you have many questions as to what happened tonight. I believe anyone who has had their life threatened like that has a right to know what's going on. Since Kyubey doesn't seem to be around right now, I thought it might be good if I filled you in myself.

"Now then, now that we're safe and away from any prying eyes and ears, allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm Mami Tomoe. I'm a third-year student at Mitakihara Junior High. But above all that…" She held a hand over her chest. "I'm a magical girl, a Puella Magi."

"Puella Magi?" the girl asked. She picked up the tea cup with her right hand while her left hand held a plate under it and then took a small sip.

Mami nodded. "The more official title for what we are called. But we commonly just refer ourselves as magical girls since we are so similar to magical girls in animes."

"I see. And what are… magical girls?"

There it was again. Mami quirked her lips. "Hmm, how should I explain this… Well, magical girls are something of a cultural thing here in Japan, like Sailor Moon. As the name implies, they're almost always young girls who can do magic. They're a big thing in anime and manga, I even used to watch all sorts of magical girl shows myself when I was little. Of course this goes without saying, those magical girls aren't real, just cartoons basically. Puella Magi are quite real however, and have been for a very long time. I suspect that magical girls as an idea were actually inspired by Puella Magi."

The girl nodded, digesting the information. "And Puella Magi?" girl asked as she took a piece of cake into her mouth. Her face lit up. "Oh, this cake is delicious!"

Mami smiled. "Thank you. Puella Magi are girls who have formed a contract with a 'messenger of magic'. Kyubey, the one I mentioned earlier, is one such messenger of magic. In exchange for a duty of defending the Earth from witches, he grants us magical powers and a single wish."

The girl paused, another fork of cake just hovering in front of her mouth. "A wish?"

Mami nodded. "Any wish we can imagine, so long as we have the magical potential for it." She brought her hands up to the table and held out her soul gem.

Oddly there was not a single dark impurity, and she hadn't even used a grief seed yet. She did use a fair amount of magic back there, so why wasn't there any darkness? Oh well. One less grief seed she has to worry about.

"This is a soul gem. When Kyubey makes a contract with a girl, one of these is created for her from her wish. It is the source of all our magic, and it also proves that we are magical girls."

"I... see," the girl said slowly, then looked away with a troubled look.

"I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?" Mami asked with concern.

The girl shook her head, her troubled look gone. "No, it's nothing. I was just thinking of something unpleasant. Please, continue."

Mami, curious but not wanting to pry, continued as so. "As I was saying, the soul gem is the source of our magic. It's what allows us to transform into our magical girl forms, which you saw earlier. What you see now is just my regular school uniform, me as just a normal human girl.

You could wish for anything you desire. Wealth, wisdom, even eternal youth, Kyubey will grant them and make them real, creating a soul gem in the process. Those who possess a soul gem are then duty-bound to fight witches as a magical girl."

The girl gave a nod of understanding. "And that monster from before… That was a witch, correct?"

/You are indeed correct./

The sound of soft and quiet tapping along a wooden floor came from the hallway towards the living room. The girl turned her head to look at the small newcomer. Mami didn't look at Kyubey, deciding instead to gauge the girl's reaction. If the girl was surprised at all by Kyubey's sudden appearance, she didn't show it.

/If magical girls can be said to be born from wishes, then witches are creatures born from curses. Just as magical girls spread hope to the earth, witches bring forth despair./

The small cat-like animal approached the table and hopped on top of it, so lightly that he didn't even cause a ripple in the tea. He sat down on his hind legs, slowly swishing his long tail back and forth as he looked at the girl. The girl looked back with a stoic expression.

/Hello, Mami's new acquaintance! My name is Kyubey. It's nice to meet you!/

She gave a warm smile at his cheery introduction. "It's nice to meet you too, Kyubey," she said.

Kyubey craned his head around and looked at Mami.

/You're up later than usual this evening, Mami./

She finally turned away from the girl and smiled at her dear and trusted companion. "I didn't go witch hunting earlier this afternoon because I had mismanaged house supplies, so I decided to go out tonight instead. Luckily just in time too, this witch was a lot stronger than usual. It was luring civilians from the other side of the city. It almost turned our new friend here into a pancake," she said with a little humor, looking and gesturing to the girl.

"Indeed. Tomoe-san saved my life and fought valiantly against a most frightening foe. If not for her, many innocents lives including mine would have been lost. For that, I am deeply grateful to her. You have picked a very brave and kind girl to be a Puella Magi, Kyubey" the girl said to Kyubey, then turned to her and bowed for the third time that night.

Mami felt her cheeks heat up from the girl's constant eloquent flattery and looked away, eyes darting around the room to find something to look at. "O-oh you," she tried laughing off, though she immediately thought afterwards that she had came off a bit awkward.

Kyouko always said she was too polite, but this girl was on a whole different level! She was so off put by the girls regal and charismatic aura, she was having a hard time thinking straight. She was supposed to be the mature Senpai here!

She decided to focus on Kyubey, trying to think of literally anything else. "H-how about you, Kyubey? How've you been doing? It's unusual that I don't see you for an entire day."

/I was investigating several anomalies. A lot of strange things have been happening lately. I'd like to speak to you about them later./

Mami tilted her head, flush fading. "Oh? Are they serious?"

/No conclusive evidence. There is not enough information to say what's really going on. For now, the best comparison I can give would be unidentifiable fingerprints at a crime scene./

Kyubey looked back at the girl, who was looking down at him with an odd gleam in her eye.

/But back to the original topic, witches are quite a problem. Anxiety and mistrust, rage and hatred, they sow the seeds of disaster all over the world. And since they're invisible to normal humans, they're that much more insidious./

Mami nodded, "Suicides that can't be explained and murders without motive, a witch's curse is most likely the cause of those kinds of things. It festers within a person, and grows and grows until it consumes them."

"How long has this been occuring? And how have witch's become such a prevalent problem to humanity without anyone's notice?"

/Witches have been around since the dawn of human life here on Earth. As for their presence, witches are careful about not letting humans see them. They hide deep within the labyrinths they create, affecting humans outside it and sometimes even luring them into their lairs./

The girl nodded in understanding. "That would explain the strange environment I found myself in earlier," she said before she took another bite of her cake.

"You were in a lot of danger," Mami said. "Humans who stray into them seldom make it out alive. Only through a magical girl can they be freed, and we can't be everywhere at once. How did you find yourself there by the way, if I may ask?"

The girl swallowed the last bite of her cake. Mami would later realize she had finished it in only three bites. She opened her mouth to reply, but then looked back down, a tense and troubled expression on her face.

Mami became worried. Did she bring up something unpleasant for her again? "Is everything alright? You don't have to answer if it's too troubling for you."

The girl shook her head. "No, it's not a problem at all. It's just that… I can not seem to remember…"

Mami let out an 'ah' of understanding. "That's okay. It's usually the norm for victims of witches to forget their experiences before entering the labyrinth. Usually only those with significant magical potential can retain all their memories and resist a witch's kiss. Unfortunately, you seem to have very little. It's actually pretty amazing you were able to stay conscious at all within the labyrinth before I got there."

"I-I see. That is… reassuring," she said and then looked away, distraught.

Another thought popped into her head. "Ah, I just realized I never got your name, Miss…?" Mami asked, trailing off.

The girl bit the bottom of her lip. "I-I cannot remember that either."

Mami's eyes widened. The girl looked up at her and continued, "I-I must apologize. This is quite embarrassing, but I cannot seem to remember anything at all. I have not been here for very long, and I don't remember the circumstances that led me to end up in this city."

That… would explain a lot of things.

At least, if she wasn't lying. Mami wasn't sure, but she played along either way. "Hmm, that is problematic. Alright, do you remember any friends or family? What's the last thing that you remember?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I cannot remember anyone. Or anything else for that matter."

Mami turned to Kyubey. "Hey Kyubey, has a witch ever taken the memories of someone before?"

/It has occured before, yes. Usually related to their abilities. However, the effect usually wears off soon after its death./

Mami put her hand to her chin then looked back at the girl. "Is there anything you remember at all? Even just the tiniest hint of something?"

The girl stat there, looking at her lap for a while with a pained look. The facial movements and distraught but not overly-done emotions really did make her seem like she was suffering a case of amnesia. But that something in Mami's long honed instincts told her otherwise. And she learned the hard way a long time ago to trust her instincts. She'd find out the truth sooner or later.

The girl looked back up. "Yes, t-there is one," she said a little hesitant, though still with her unique bold inflection. "Does the term 'Clock Tower' mean anything to you?"

Clock Tower?

"No, not in particular," Mami said. "Mitakihara used to have a replica of London's Big Ben back several years ago, but there was a major accident and it was abandoned and demolished. Beyond that, no, it doesn't." Did it actually mean anything, or was she just trying to throw her off? "What about it?" she asked.

"It's just a word that I seem to recall, though I don't understand it's significance."

"Hmm, that doesn't give us much of a lead." Mami tried another route. "How about 'magus'? You mentioned me being a magus earlier?"

The girl gave a light nod, not a hint of deceit. "I assumed. You looked like you were casting magecraft earlier, so I just guessed you to be a mage." Magecraft? Another odd term. It was something at least. And the way she used 'mage'...

Mami wanted to question her further, something was not right. But she didn't want to antagonize her either. Push her too far and she just might clam up and not trust her. And if anything, she wanted the girl to trust her, no matter who she really was.

In the end, she decided to drop the subject. She smiled at the girl.

"Well, that is quite the problem. I don't suppose you know where you were last living at?"

The girl shook her head. "No. Ah, actually, there is a place. Fuyuki City, I believe I was from."

Well, at least she got one last hint. "Never heard of Fuyuki before, must be far away from Mitakihara. If that's the case, you really are a long way from home, aren't you?" she teased a little. The girl looked down at the table.

Mami said in a reassuring voice, "Don't worry, I'll look up the city and check for any specific missing persons. In the meantime, if you'd like, you can stay at my place. At least until we can solve your identity."

The girl looked up, a little startled. "No, I cannot! I do not mean to impose, you have already done enough for me already!" she exclaimed, already starting to get up.

Mami quickly waved her hands in dismissal. "Oh, it's no problem at all! I have more than enough living space. Besides, I wouldn't be able to sleep easy knowing you were wandering around all by yourself out there in the dark anyway.

If it makes it easier for you, then I'm just asking for some additional company. It's awfully lonely all by one's self here. Please?" Mami said with the best puppy eyes she could muster. She had no idea what she looked like doing it, as she'd only done it to Kyouko before. Thinking back however, Kyouko did say to never do it again back then.

The girl looked at her with a strained unreadable expression. Eventually, she relented, and sat back down. "Very well. I accept and thank you for your additional hospitality," she said. Mami smiled back, even though inside she was cheering inside.

"Splendid!" Mami exclaimed and then clasped her hands. "First we're going to have to figure out you're living arrangements. The guest room should already be set, so you're already set there. Then we're going to have to get you changed. Wouldn't want you ruining that beautiful blue dress, Ao-san."

The girl blinked. "Ao-san?"

Mami nodded. "For blue, just like your dress. Don't you think it fits, Kyubey?"

/I have no opinion regarding this matter./

"See? Even Kyubey agrees."

Ao blinked. Then chuckled. "Very well. Ao-san will suffice for a name, Tomoe-san."

Mami giggled. "Please, call me Mami."

Ao blinked again, before smiling softly. "Hnn, yes, I like the sound of that better. Yes, that will do, Mami-san."

oOoOo

'What do you mean, like a witch?'

/It's as I said. Her body is not normal like a human's. Rather, it's like solidified magic. Like a witch's body and their familiars. Or your muskets and magical girl uniform./

Mami stared at her steamy reflection, blow drying her wet hair after her nice and hot shower.

'So you're saying she's a witch somehow?' she said telepathically to the telepath conduit beside her.

/No, I am just making comparisons. To be honest, I'm not too sure what she is. She is a completely unique case. There have been similar incidents in the past where artificial humans were created through the power of a girl's wish or magical abilities, but her very form is several magnitudes of a higher quality. I haven't seen magical purity this high in a very long time, much less making up the entirety of a human's body./

/In addition, even though her body seems to be 99% magic, she has absolutely no karmic potential to become a magical girl. That is strictly impossible. All living and nonliving things in this world have even minute leverage on the karmic universal balance. She is a living impossibility./

'Is she related to those anomalies you were talking about earlier?

/Data is inconclusive. She may be, or she may not. Due to the very nature of wishes, we may never know her origins. And if she is to be believed, neither her herself. She may be the sister a girl has always wanted, but worded incorrectly so that no one would ever remember. Regardless, it is highly doubtful that she is the missing link between the various anomalies. In addition with Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname, however, there may be a possible correlation. All three exhibit traits never before recorded./

'Is she dangerous?'

/That is also inconclusive. Whether or not she can make use of that energy only she knows. Aside from molecular make-up and lack of magical potential, she could just be a normal human being with strange origins. My advice is to stay with your original idea and keep a close eye on her for the time being. What do you believe?/

 _When she finally crossed to the other side, she felt a significant burst of magic wash over her. Her first assumption was the presence of another magical girl, a rather powerful one at that. It definitely gave her quite the unexpected jump._

'I think there's definitely something strange going on with this girl and she's more than she appears to be. She's definitely hiding something.'

She definitely did not image that sensation of magic when she first entered the labyrinth. There was way too much of it for her to just be imagining it. Witch's didn't have magic, at least, not in that form. The only person that burst of magic could have come from was from her. But if she wasn't a magical girl, then how? Maybe she was just really good at hiding it? But how would that explain Kyubey's description?

/If that is your conclusion, then all the more reason to keep an eye on her. Good thing you managed to convince her to stay with you for the time being. Excellent quick thinking there, Mami!/

Mami giggled as she set the blow dryer down. 'She's only going to be here a little bit. Until I find her family. But thanks, Kyubey.'

/No problem, Mami!/

Mami turned around and laid against the sink countertop, looking up at the ceiling. Honestly, beside making sure the mystery girl wouldn't be a safety hazard to the city, she was feeling a little lonely. Behind the selfless facade she put up, she honestly just wanted some company again. If she didn't turn out to be another magical girl out for her skin or a witch hidden in disguise, she really hoped that they could be friends.

Just thinking about it reminded her of one Kyouko Sakura.

Kyouko...

Mami peaked out her bathroom door. There she was, Ao, dressed in cute light blue pajamas she handpicked for her, still by her glass walls looking out into the night city.

She wondered what the amnesiac noble girl was thinking about.

oOoOo

It had been a little more than a week since the day Madoka's migraines began. Though they hadn't exactly stopped, they were very infrequent. If she had to count, the most she ever had was two following the first day followed by maybe one every other day after. They weren't that impactful either, the accompanying images vague and only a brief blur before she continued whatever she was doing at the time.

Today, she had awoken from that strange dream with the girl with raven hair again. It filled her attention for a time, but she decided she wasn't going to let it bring down her day again. It was March 25th, a wonderful Friday. She was going to enjoy her day to the fullest if she could help it.

Pulling Mom's bed sheets away as she comically screamed in the light. Brushing her teeth and washing her face next to her mother as she talked about her friend Hitomi's new love letter and her homeroom teacher's current seemingly-stable relationship. Her mother picking her pink ribbons over yellow ones. Dad's delicious fruit breakfast and toast. A typical yet wonderful morning, if she said so herself.

Oddly, the events up from this morning to now seemed very familiar. Hadn't she 'remembered' them last week? Probably just her imagination.

Either way, Madoka was having a much better morning today than last week.

"Stop wiggling, Fou-kun! They'll see you!"

"Ngh, fou!" her blue school handbag cried out in resistance.

Yes, Madoka was having a much better day today indeed.

Madoka walked along a road by a small man-made river that flowed down from the gates of her school, her eyes darting left and right between the various students walking around her. In her left hand, her school bag continuously rustling around and made fabric-scratching noises.

Madoka, agitated and annoyed, stopped and looked down at her bag with a cross look. She whispered, "I'm warning you, Fou-kun! If you don't stop messing around in there, I'll… I'll... I'll do something you won't like very much!"

The blue school bag ceased its movements. Madoka looked back up and resumed her walk with a pleased smile on her face.

A moment later, the scratching resumed. Twice as loud as before.

Madoka, her cheeks puffed out red with anger, held her bag up to her face and said,

"Morning Madoka! You're here early!"

Madoka quickly hid her bag behind her and adopted the best poker face she could muster. Which, suffice to say, wasn't a very good poker face at all.

Sayaka Miki ran up to her with a grin, waving her arm in the air. Hitomi Shizuki followed behind her not too far off, both hands holding her handbag in front of her.

"Good morning, Kaname-san. How are you doing this morning?" asked Hitomi as she walked closer to the two.

Madoka put on the best smile she could. All Sayaka and Hitomi saw was their childhood friend clenching her teeth awkwardly at them. "M-morning Sayaka-chan. M-morning Hitomi-chan. Just fine! N-nice weather today isn't it?"

Sayaka and Hitomi looked at one another. Then back at Madoka. Madoka gulped.

"Hey, Madoka. You feeling okay?" asked Sayaka. "You're a little…"

Madoka quickly shook her head. "Nnnn, No! Nothing's the matter! Why would anything be the matter? I'm perfectly fine! Just peachy in fact!"

"Just peachy?" Hitomi mouthed with a raised eyebrow. She hadn't ever heard Madoka use that phrase before.

"You know that I know that you're awful at lying, right Madoka?" Sayaka said, motioning between Madoka and herself. "C'mon, just spill it already. Whatever it is it can't be that bad.'"

"I-I have no idea what you're talking about, Sayaka-chan!"

Suddenly, the sound of a metal zipper being drawn open drew all three's attention to Madoka's bag. Fou-kun's furry head popped out from within the open bag and looked between the three students.

Madoka gulped again. Hitomi brought a palm to her mouth. Sayaka only stared.

"Hey, Madoka?" said Sayaka. "I know you love cute animals and all, I mean I do too, but I don't think it's a good idea to bring your new pet to class."

Madoka sighed in defeat. "I know, I know, but he keeps following me! I left him at home, but he somehow figured out how to get out of the house and followed me all the way here! I don't know what else to do except hide him in my bag!

Sayaka crossed her arms over her chest. "He did, huh? Okay, let me talk to him. Your ol' pal Sayaka will figure something out."

Sayaka coughed into a fist, clearing her throat while thinking how ridiculous this was talking to a squirrel of all things. Even if said squirrel could somehow understand Japanese and could now figure out how to open doors and locks apparently. She kneeled down as close as comfortably possible to Madoka's handbag.

"H-hey, little guy," she said with a tone of voice one would use with a small child. "Remember me? It's me, Sayaka-chan, from last night! Listen, Madoka and I need to go to school and stuff. Boring stuff, I know, but it's important. Least that's what my dad says. A-anyway, we can't bring animals like you to class, or we'll get in big trouble. So why don't you go back home just for a little while. We'll be out faster than you can blink!" Sayaka said and started petting the small and fluffy squirrel's head.

Well, she _was_ going to pet him. Before Fou-kun bit her hand for the second time that week, anyway.

Sayaka pulled her arm back, hissing in pain. "Yeow! Hey, what the hell!? You stupid little-"

"Iweeeee-"

"Oh dear."

"Sayaka-chan, people are staring," whispered Madoka, tugging at her friend's sleeve.

Sayaka looked up and around, a dozen or so students watching their shenanigans as they walked past.

She quit pulling at the infernal beast's stretchy cheeks and stepped away with an embarrassed and slightly angry blush, arms crossed.

"Ugh, l-let's just get to class already," she said to Madoka. She turned to the rebellious little rodent. "Hey you, I'll let this slide just once as long as you just stay in there quietly. So you better not cause any trouble for Madoka in class, you hear me?"

Fou-kun nodded and let out a happy 'fou!' in response before dipping back inside the bag and zipping it closed from within.

Madoka just let out a tired sigh.

oOoOo

Tried as she might, Homura could not find any significant alterations to the current timeline.

For the past week, she did her usual routine. Stealing weapons from the local Yakuza and the stationed U.S. military base nearby, dealing with witches and collecting their grief seeds, hunting Kyubey's multitude of bodies, planning ahead the days to come. All the while keeping an eye out for any unusual changes or disturbances.

Everything was as what it always is. Aside from some odd news reports of a growing number of individuals found unconscious with teeth marks on their necks and a man in a blue rubber suit disappearing after being run over during a major crash incident, nothing particularly special had changed. A bit early for April Fools', she thought.

Was that _thing_ she saw during her rewind of time just a one time fluke? That dark place of utter black and immense dread just a figment of her slowly crumbling sanity?

She bit the bottom of her lip. Just how much the same was she now? She couldn't recall the amount of times she had jumped back in time, she wasn't even sure what she was trying to accomplish in this timeline. Walpurgisnacht had already proved itself invincible despite all her best efforts. She was just going through the motions at this point. Was it possibly that she truly was losing her mind? Was this what it was like, losing herself as the very foundations of her consciousness crumbled? She shivered at the thought.

But for the moment, Homura faced an entirely different and personal problem.

Madoka herself.

She stood with trepidation in her tan school uniform, waiting in the hallway next to the room she was scheduled to transfer in. The very same room with one Madoka Kaname.

The memories and feelings of the last timeline had left its mark on Homura. Why wouldn't it? It was one of the happiest times of her life as far as she could remember, and it was so quickly snatched away. Just thinking about Madoka...

Homura bit the bottom of her lip. Her hands clenched.

She took a deep breath to try and calm her nerves. It really didn't help all that much.

She briefly wondered how she was going to keep her composure this time introducing herself to the class in front of the girl who no longer remembered her when she was pulled out of her thoughts.

"Miss Akemi, was it?" came a middle-aged woman's voice. Homura turned towards the speaker.

Kazuko Saotome, homeroom teacher of class 2-C. A short bespectacled woman with short brown hair in a green jacket and a white skirt. She was always a sweet and kind lady who cared a lot for her students, more so than her peers. The living archetype of a loving teacher. She never held a romantic relationship for more than three months.

"Yes, ma'am. Are you Ms. Saotome?" Homura asked redundantly. She already knew the answer.

The smiling teacher nodded. "Indeed I am. You're just on time, Miss Akemi. I'll be starting class in just a couple of minutes. Do you mind waiting out here just for a bit longer? I'll call you in when I'm ready."

Homura shook her head. "I don't mind at all, ma'am."

Kazuko smiled sweetly and did slight thankful bow. "Alrighty, then. See you in class!" she said and turned to leave towards the classroom. Then she turned around with sudden recollection.

"Ah, I almost forgot. We're actually supposed to have another new student today. A transferee from Europe, quite the lovely girl. I was showing her the ropes of our school system here earlier, and she said she'll be up here in a bit. If you see her, could you be a dear and wave her in and let her on what I told you?

Homura blinked. "What does she look like?"

She received no answer. Ms. Saotome hadn't heard her, as she had already entered the class and was drowned out by the classroom's chatter. Homura stood there dumbly.

Another transfer student? That was odd. Sure, whenever she rewound time, there would be occasional differences. One time, Mami Tomoe was a brunette instead of a blond. In another, Kyosuke Kamijo was a guitar player rather than a violinist. In one particular timeline, she actually had _cat ears_ and a _tail_ , which went about as horrible for her as it sounded. Thankfully, it disappeared in the next loop.

In the last…

She shut her eyes and shook her head.

The occasional differences very rarely introduced new individuals into the time stream. All of them still were figures that had already existed and just had small changes to their overall histories and fates. One such offender to her in relatively recent memory was one Oriko Mikuni, and she had only really seen her maybe twice as a magical girl. Every other time she seemed to continue a mundane but sad life as the daughter of an imprisoned and corrupt politician. Mostly because she killed her right after she contracted. But she hadn't contracted in a great many time loops, so she stopped bothering.

Never before was there a new student to her class on the very same day she was set to transfer in. She briefly wondered who could it be, and what importance they may have in the future. Could they be a threat to Madoka? Or were they just another small insignificant change in the timestream?

No matter. She would deal with them appropriately if it came to it. Just like all the others.

She heard footsteps to her left. Cold eyes turned to look at the new arrival.

oOoOo

Ms. Saotome stood at the front of the class, arms across her chest with an angry and irritated look. "Attention please!" she called. The class quieted down. "I have a very important issue to discuss today. So eyes front, ears open!"

Ms. Saotome lifted her foot and brought it down with a dramatic 'thud'. "The correct way to fry an egg, sunny-side up or down?!" she practically yelled out. She then suddenly pointed with a thin grey stick towards one student at the front of the class, an average lean boy with short brown hair. "Mister Nakazawa, what do you think?! Come on, I don't have all day!"

The brown-haired boy sputtered in surprise. "Huh?! Eh-erm, well... I-I think either style is fine, miss," he stuttered out with an ambivalent answer. Madoka noted to herself how Ms. Saotome always seemed to pick on him during her romance 'episodes'. She also wondered if she picked him specifically because of his ambivalent answers.

"Yes precisely! They can be fried either way!" she said, swinging her stick back and forth. Grabbing the stick with both her hands she slowly bent it inwards, applying tension in the middle with her mounting anger. "Therefore it goes without saying that you should never judge a woman's attractiveness by the way she fries her eggs!" she finished just as her fifth instructor's stick snapped that year.

She held her broken stick up in the air, one half limp and comically clinging to the other. "So remember, girls! Make sure you don't associate yourself with men who complain about their eggs sunny-side down!"

Sayaka, only a desk in front of her to her left, turned and leaned over to her and whispered, "Guess it didn't work out, huh?"

Madoka could only give out a silent, "Y-yeah," preoccupied with deja vu.

 _Now_ she definitely wasn't imagining it. She most definitely remembered having a 'vision' or something of this particular moment in time, one particular moment that stood out from all the rest. Maybe she was a mutant or something that could see the future, just like in one of those old American movies she'd watched with Sayaka when they were kids. That would be kinda cool. Though, she really hoped she wouldn't grow scales or another pair of eyes or something. Mom and Dad would totally freak out! 'What happened to my poor Madoka!?' or something like that.

Ms. Saotome meanwhile kept going at it, hands to her hips. "And you boys, too! You'd better not grow up so petty as to fuss over how the darn eggs are cooked, understand? If you can't even treat your girls right, you don't even deserve to be in a relationship!"

She let a loud 'ahem' then turned to the class with a cheery smile, all that hot air and irritation gone in an instant. Like it hadn't happened at all. She was still holding that broken stick though. "Well then, now that that's out of the way, let's give a big warm welcome to our new classmates!"

The whole class sighed. Sayaka said something about priorities, but Madoka didn't really hear her. Something entirely different was on her mind.

This was it. If she was correct and the visions were true, then coming through that door would be-

"Now come on in, you two. Don't be shy!" Ms. Saotome called out towards the doorway. Two students entered.

Madoka gulped. Her heart raced.

There she was, walking into class with an elegant stride. Long and beautiful raven hair flowed gently behind with her every step, so silky and smooth she could almost see the sparkles. Her body was lean and lithe like a ballerina, with such generous curves unbefitting a girl her own age. She had a pale and stern visage, calm and collected. A mysterious kind of person who without a doubt in Madoka's mind would immediately be popular and attract many admirers.

Indisputably and jaw-droppingly gorgeous. A cool beauty right out of a movie. The very image of someone 'truly special.' The girl from her dreams and memories.

And beside her...

...Something different.

...Something new.

The other girl was just as elegant, though fairly shorter than the first. The shortest she'd ever seen somebody her age in fact. She too had a mysterious air, if not more so than the first girl, but she was also accompanied by a slight haunting aura. A small girl with young albino features, she honestly looked like she still should have been in elementary. Her long white hair glinted in the light like silver, a specific shade of color that she had never seen before an another. Large western eyes, bright crimson red like rubies, made her otherworldly appearance all the more mysterious. Her unforgettable face was like a porcelain doll, smooth and pale, perfectly symmetrical without a single flaw.

Both beautiful, both mysterious, yet near opposites. One a gorgeously mature dark black and purple. The other a perfect young silvery white and red.

Ms. Saotome pulled her back to the world. "Today, we have two new students joining us. Now then, why don't you introduce yourself first, Miss Akemi?" she said, motioning towards the taller girl.

The girl nodded and took a step forwards. "I'm Homura Akemi. It's nice to meet you," she said in monotone, brief and to the point. She gave a polite bow to the class.

The girl, Homura, looked towards Madoka's direction with her pale violet eyes. Madoka's breathing hitched, suddenly becoming very self-conscious. Was she being weird? Was she staring too much? There wasn't anything on her face, was there? Thankfully, it lasted only for a moment, as Homura stepped back and continued simply staring on ahead.

The teacher didn't seem to notice the exchange. "Thank you, Miss Akemi. Your turn now, little Miss. Please introduce yourself to the class," she said, gesturing to the other girl.

The girl nodded then stepped forward. She gave a light curtsy and then introduced herself with a small smile. "Salutations everyone. My name is Illyasviel von Einzbern. I'm a transfer-student from Germany," she said, her voice high and soft like a fairy. She then adopted a happy grin and brought her hands behind her back, bowing cutely. "It's a pleasure to meet you all! I hope that we all get along!" she said with utmost cheer in her voice.

Madoka watched as the beautiful girl from her dreams turned her eyes down towards Illyasviel beside her. She hadn't noticed it until now, but Homura seemed very pale and stiff, like she had just seen a ghost.

* * *

A/N

I did it! I made the one month deadline! :D

I had briefly considered making it Saber instead, but I thought Illyasviel would make for a better and unexpected twist after building Saber up like that. Did I deliver? Also I hope that my best (or do I say poor?) attempts at humor made up for all the angst this and last chapter.

Originally, I was going to introduce the rest of the F/SN cast this chapter along with some other secrets and cameos, but as I developed the story more and more I thought it best if I pushed their intro back a bit and solidify the "small-town" struggles of the PMMM cast first. That and I wanted to space the events out evenly so there wouldn't be any 'boring' chapters, you know the ones.

Ah, now that I think about it, I hope I didn't bore you all this chapter. I honestly didn't know what I was doing with the Mami and Saber bit this chapter, dialogue isn't my strong suit. I promise there will be more exciting encounters in the next chapter, though!

Oh, and just a quick little survey. Do you guys like the current story's summary? Or do you feel it's too vague? I'm thinking about changing it, but I'm conflicted because I like it too. As always, a constructive review of the chapter or even just some compliments would be nice too, but a simple yes for like and no for vague will suffice if you don't have the time.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and have a happy early Valentines Day!

Original Publish Date: 2/1/2018

Last Updated: 2/1/2018


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